SPARROW, John ~ Harold Nicolson and V. Sackville-West. An Address delivered by John Sparrow at a memorial service St. James’s Piccadilly 16 May 1968.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Privately printed for Benedict and Nigel Nicolson at the University Press, Oxford: 1968.

Small 8vo., textured grey paper wraps, stapled at backstrip and lettered with double-rules in black to upper cover; THE BOOK with the odd crease and perhaps a touch toned along the backstrip, else fine. The pamphlet is protected in a removable mylar sleeve. First edition of this memorial address for the husband and wife duo of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. Sackville-West passed away on the 2nd June 1962 and in May 1968, her husband followed her. Produced just two weeks after his passing, this pamphlet provides a moving account of their two intertwined lives - "they were as different as poetry is from prose", Sparrow states, "that two natures apparently so antithetical should have become complementary was a miracle - a miracle that required...intelligence and love". Commissioned by their sons, Benedict and Nigel, the pamphlet comes with an accompanying leaf on Sissinghurst headed notepaper, in which they state "We are sending you... a copy of the Address that John Sparrow delivered at the Memorial Service for our father and mother...We have thanked John for expressing so well what was felt by all their friends". Very scarce.

BINDING: Softcover
CONDITION: Near Fine