THE STORY OF THE SIREN

First edition, first impression. One of 500 copies hand-printed and bound by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press. Signed and inscribed by the author. 8vo. Original blue marbled paper wrappers with printed paper title label to the front cover (the label in the third state of three, without priority of issue). Pages entirely unopened. A very good copy indeed, the binding firm with a little wear and light toning to the extremities. The contents with a hint of dust-soiling to the head of the pages are otherwise clean throughout.

Signed by E. M. Forster in black ink on the title page, with a strike through the printed name, and additionally inscribed by Forster to the front endpaper "Alexis and Jill / with Morgan's birthday greetings and gratitude / Nov. 26th 1960". Alexis Peter Vlasto (1915-2000) was a British historian, philologist and pioneer of Slavonic studies. Having entered King's College, Cambridge in 1937 to study modern and medieval languages, in 1939 he was headhunted to work at the British code breaking establishment Bletchley Park, where he was placed on secondment to undertake "war work". There, he was given charge of the Japanese Army Air Force section, where he would aid in cracking the Japanese Army Air Force code system 3366. Whilst at Bletchley Park Vlasto also renewed his acquaintance with the young musicologist, Hilda Joan "Jill" Medway, like him seconded from Cambridge. By the end of the war the pair were married, with the wedding taking place on 19th of March 1945, less than two months before VE day. Following the war, they remained in Cambridge, where Jill taught music and enthusiastically promoted the early music revival and Alexis worked alongside the renowned linguist Elizabeth Hill to establish the Cambridge University Department of Slavonic Studies, which opened in 1948. An honorary fellow of King's since 1946, Forster spent a significant amount of his time at the college, largely residing there for the final decade of his life and it was here that he developed a friendship with the Vlastos. An excellent association copy of E. M. Forster's metaphysical Mediterranean tale. (Woolmer 9; Kirkpatrick A6).