Title: It Was Different at the Time
Author: Inez Holden
Published: 1943
Publisher: John Lane The Bodley Head, London
First edition/first impression (‘First published 1943’); UK; hardback with dust wrapper (not price-clipped, showing 4s. 6d. net); covered in clear, removable protective wrapper

Very Good+ / Very Good- : some discolouration at head & foot of spine, a little bumping & wear to board extremities, dustiness and darkening to top edge, war economy paper aged, internally clean & unmarked; dust wrapper has large part of spine paper missing, along with tears, chipping and tears to edges, tape repair to verso, some scuffing to panels, yellowing to rear panel

Scarce true first edition of the second of the four books written and published by British writer Inez Holden during WWII, preceded by the novella Night Shift (1941) and followed by the fictionalised reportage novel There's No Story There (1944) and the short story collection To the Boating (1945).

It Was Different at the Time is a wartime memoir, compiled directly from Holden’s personal diaries tracking home front life during the London Blitz, between April 1938 and August 1941. The book was originally intended to be a collaborative joint writing venture between Holden and her close friend George Orwell. Orwell, along with Stevie Smith and other literary figures of the time, appear in the work in heavily disguised appearances.

Out of print for many years, until it was republished, along with Night Shift, in the single-volume edition titled Blitz Writing by Handheld Press in 2019.

Inez Holden was a British writer who transformed from a 1920s Bohemian Bright Young Thing into a socialist journalist reporting on the Nuremberg trials. After fading into post-war obscurity, her gritty wartime works like Night Shift, It Was Different at the Time and There's No Story There have undergone a recent critical rediscovery. She was a close friend, confidante, and, briefly, lover to George Orwell.

Any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, and please take a look at my other items for rare & collectable books for sale.

Please ask before bidding for international postage rates.

Thanks for looking.