Romany Love.

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd,, 1938. First edition, first impression, of Xavier Petulengro's first novel. This copy belonged to the Dutch book collector Kees Hartmans, with his bookplate to the front pastedown, and his pencil annotations in the margins. The majority of these annotations comment on or translate the frequent use of Romany in the text, a useful and extensive glossary of which is provided at the end of the book. Hartmans, the former editor of Circus magazine De Piste, owned a collection of more than 5,500 circus books, which he bequeathed to the University of Amsterdam in 1963. This edition is uncommon, with just seven copies traced institutionally in UK. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With the pictorial dust jacket. Spine gently rolled and lightly faded, minor rubbing to extremities; a very good, bright copy in the price-clipped jacket with browned spine, nicks to extremities, tiny chips to spine ends.