First edition, first impression, in the rare dust jacket, and inscribed by the author to her lover Hilda "Stoker" Matheson (1888-1940). The inscription, to the front free endpaper, reads "From V. Dec 1928". This book was one of several inscribed by Vita and given to her then-lover Hilda Matheson (1888-1940), whom she nicknamed "Stoker", in December 1928. Matheson was Director of Talks at the BBC, and on 11th December Vita had delivered a radio broadcast there, appropriately on the subject of "The Modern Woman". They spent the night together, and Hilda was off work "sick" on the 12th. On the 13th, in one of the over 100 letters from Hilda to Vita which survive, she wrote "All day - ever since that blessed and ever to be remembered indisposition, I have been thinking of you - bursting with you - and wanting you - oh my god wanting you." It is possible that this book was gifted by Vita to "Stoker" during this "ever to be remembered indisposition", or at some other moment in this month at the height of their affair. The coupled also travelled in Savoy together in 1929, and Vita dedicated her poem from that venture "Storm in the Mountains" (1929) to Hilda. When Matheson died in December 1940 after a botched hospital operation, Vita in an obituary described her characteristically as a "sturdy little pony". Passenger to Teheran relates the author's travels with her diplomat husband Harold Nicolson through Egypt and Iraq to Tehran, Persia (Iran), to witness the coronation of Reza Shah. This is a superb presentation association in the rare dust jacket - we have only ever handled one other copy in jacket, and can trace only one at auction, in 1974.
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