English Dolls' Houses.

signed

A presentation copy from Graham Greene to: 'Mr. and Mrs. Jack Rubens who have shown such a kind interest in the Rotunda from the husband of the Author, Graham Greene'.

Vivien Greene's first published work; the book is credited with persuading dealers and museum curators that doos' houses were a serious field of study and thus required conserving. Greene (nee Dayrell-Browning, 1904-2003) was considered the world's leading authority on doll's houses. Her notes record 1,500 such houses that she examined in North America, Europe and South Africa. In 1962 she added the Rotunda (mentioned in her husband's inscription above) to a dolls' house museum in the grounds of her home outside Oxford, incorporating the spiral staircase from St. James's Theatre. The museum was part-funded by Graham Greene and opened by Albert Richardson, who later donated a dolls'; house. By the mid-1990s the Rotunda could boast no fewer that 50 miniature castles, cottages and manor houses, all furnished with incredible intricacy down to the tiniest piece of porcelain,. Vivien Greene was married to Greene for twenty years and they had two children, Lucy Caroline and Francis Hugh. Graham left his family in 1947 and they formally separated in 1948, but in accordance with Catholic teaching the couple were never divorced and the marriage lasted until Graham's death in 1991.

First edition, inscribed by Graham Greene to the blank upper free endaper; 4to (305 x 235 mm); well over 100 black & white illustrations, some full-page, some age toning to text block, otherwise internally near-fine; publisher's scarlet cloth dust-soiled at head of spine, else fine, illustrated dust-jacket, somewhat toned, spine darkened, rubbed at extremities with two losses to top edge (see photo') but whole and unrestored.