"Leaves From A Missionary's Notebook" 1929 TENNANT, Stephen
$1,800
The Adventures of Felix Littlejohn
TENNANT, Stephen
[80] pp.
Secker and Warburg
To E.M. Forster
One hundred and twenty-five copies of this book have been specially printed on vellum paper for sale in England, each numbered and signed by the author. This is No...
1929
10 3/4" x 7
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Leaves from a Missionary's Notebook, subtitled 'The Story of Felix Littlejohn. Missionary and Explorer', was Stephen Tennant's only commercially published book. It reveals, through pictures and Tennant's swirling text, the adventures of a missionary sent to the South Seas. The residents are not however susceptible to conversion and Littlejohn is surrounded by lusty locals and beefy sailors, common motifs in Tennant's works.
Although the book was completed in 1929, it was not published until 1937. It was republished in 1986 to celebrate the author's eightieth birthday when it was banned by Lambeth libraries for its racial stereotypes.
The first edition of this amusing parody of the slow corruption of a British missionary in a tropical paradise, with distinctly homoerotic undertones: "Sometimes Felix thought he would go mad- white wax flowers smelling of sweet death, hot moonlight, and hands and mouths, and mouths and mouths." The book is entirely illustrated with the author's quite accomplished drawings and his holograph transcription of the text. With a printed dedication to E.M. Forster who encouraged Tennant in his early efforts at writing.
*chipping to upper left and lower right front jacket panel*