Ballerina by Lady Eleanor Smith first edition 1932

SMITH, Lady Eleanor. Ballerina.
 
London, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1932.
 
First edition. 368pp. Publisher’s black cloth, lettered in yellow. With the original dust jacket.
Jacket in very good condition, slightly toned with light wear to extremities and a few small nicks, with a couple of tape repairs to the reverse; price (7/6) intact. Cloth clean and sound with a few light marks, and an abrasion to the inside pastedown; internally very good.
 
A novel drawn from Smith’s association with the ballet world and figures such as Sergei Diaghilev and Anna Pavlova. Smith later recalled that the work would not have been written without seeing Pavlova perform. Smith, coined one of the bright young things, narrates the life of a fictional ballerina, her rise and eventual fall. It was adapted for the screen in the United States as The Men in Her Life (1941). Uncommon in the original dust jacket.