"The Skein Of Legends Around Chopin" by Adam Harasowski, 1st Edition, 1967, Foreword by Arthur Hedley. Hardback in very good condition, DJ in good condition. SIGNED by author with signed handwritten letter to recipient together with a news clipping reporting on author's recent (second) marriage. 

[A "skein" is defined as: "a length of thread or yarn, loosely coiled and knotted." We might therefore take "A Skein of Legends" as the author's polite way of saying "gossip."]

As seen in photos, DJ has chips at spine ends. It also has splits at spine and fore edge front. Slight fading on book front cover at spine foot where exposed by split in DJ. DJ not price-clipped. Binding tight, square, firm. If book has been read, it was treated very gently. Generous selection of photographs, of Chopin and people in his life, and of passages of music. 

Inscription is "To Mrs. XXXXX, a Chopin lover, from A-- H---.". Mrs. XXXXX has pencilled her name in on front inside cover. [No other internal markings discerned.]  Included is a letter from author to Mrs. XXXXX dated 22.12.80. Harasowski was 86 years old at the time. The letter is friendly and quite chatty but somewhat formal as the recipient, who had written to the author, was previously unknown to him. The letter refers to a biography of Chopin that Harasowski had began writing in the 60's with Arthur Hedley who unfortunately died while the project was in progress; the author hopes to complete it. [He didn't]. He mentions also having translated "the Skein" into several languages himself (with the help of others); he spoke several languages. Enclosed with the letter is a xerox of a press cutting reporting on his second marriage in 1980.

Adam Harasowski was a man of many skills and abilities, an engineer as well as a pianist, composer, conductor, and author. He was considered in his time as one of the outstanding Chopin scholars in the UK. Polish, born in the Ukraine, he spent most of his life, from the beginning of WW2, in England, playing a prominent part (along with his Polish first wife) in nurturing the Polish community in Scotland and England. Born in 1904, he died in his English home in 1996.

According to Wikipedia's account of Harasowski, "The book provides a critical analysis of over 40 contemporary biographies of Fryderyk Chopin, focusing especially on controversies surrounding the letters allegedly exchanged between Chopin and The book provides a critical analysis of over 40 contemporary biographies of Fryderyk Chopin, focusing especially on controversies surrounding the letters allegedly exchanged between Chopin and Delfina Potocka, which had implied an intimate relationship.^[Harasowski categorised Chopin scholarship into "works that propagated legends and those that debunked them".^[, which had implied an intimate relationship. Harasowski categorised Chopin scholarship into "works that propagated legends and those that debunked them"".