Do I Wake or Sleep

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. First edition. Fine in very near fine dustwrapper with a tiny tear and a little rubbing on the spine. The first volume of the author's *New York Mosaic* trilogy. Miller was in her sixties when she published the first of these novels under the name Isabel Bolton. It was praised by Edmund Wilson in *The New Yorker*, who was reportedly greatly disappointed when he met this bright new star in the literary firmament – expecting a brilliant and romantic young writer, and instead meeting an amiable "older woman." Diana Trilling wrote of Bolton, after the publication of her second novel, *The Christmas Tree*, that "... she is the best woman writer of fiction in this country today." However Bolton had all but disappeared from the literary landscape by the time of her death in 1975. With the reissue of the trilogy in 1998 her work is once again getting the attention of serious critics. All three novels are set in New York City and the appeal of Miller's novels bears some resemblance to those of Dawn Powell. An especially nice copy of a fragile wartime title. (Inventory #: 294933)