Ramakrishna and his Disciples.

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd,, 1965. Inscribed to two of his closest confidants First UK edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to his close friends, Dodie Smith and her husband Alec Beesley: "For Dodie and Alec, with love from Chris - April 1965". Isherwood entered Hollywood's Vedanta monastery in November 1942, a decision which baffled Smith: "I simply cannot understand the craving for discipline... He seems to want to force himself beyond his own inclinations... I fancy the truth is that he has had a muddled and rather dissipated life and feels he might slip back in" (quoted by Parker, p. 440). Despite his newfound craving for a disciplined life, Isherwood still managed to visit the couple for lunch almost every Sunday throughout his stay at the monastery, entreating Smith for advice on his translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and remarking that she, "the ever-enthusiastic and encouraging" was the one who "more than anybody else... helped me struggle through Prater Violet" (Parker, quoted p. 465). The two collaborated on many creative ventures together, with Smith seeing Isherwood as "a much loved but rather wayward son" (ibid., p. 473). Smith and Beesley were good friends with the dramatist John van Druten, and it was they who suggested that he turn Isherwood's Sally Bowles into a play. After some squabbling over royalties, van Druten wrote I Am a Camera, which formed the basis for the musical and film Cabaret. Smith and Beesley were also the dedicatees of Isherwood's The World in the Evening (1954). Ramakrishna and his Disciples was first published by Simon and Schuster in New York earlier the same year. Octavo. Photographic frontispiece and 16 plates. Original purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt within single rule gilt frame. With dust jacket. Spine ends lightly sunned and bumped, a few marks to edges; a near-fine copy in very good jacket, spine lightly toned, laminate lifting slightly on front panel, a few marks, trivial nicks and creases to edges. Peter Parker, Isherwood: a Life Revealed, 2004.