The Eleventh Virgin

(no dust jacket) [good sound copy, with modest wear to spine extremities, spine a little turned, a bit of age-toning to edges of text block; bookplate of noted M-G-M writer-producer Carey Wilson on front pastedown, old department store label/price sticker on rear pastedown ("From the Books of J.W. Robinson Co., Seventh & Grand, Los Angeles")] The rare first book (and only novel) by the radical pacifist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. It follows the protagonist, June Henreddy, through adolescence and college and on to her first job, on the staff of a socialist newspaper. She and the book's other characters are embroiled in the issues of the day (pacifism, birth control, free love, etc.), and at one point her involvement with the women's suffrage movement lands her in jail -- and her involvement with a man results in an unexpected pregnancy, which leads her to seek out an abortionist. Clearly autobiographical, the book draws on Day's bohemian lifestyle in Greenwich Village (which included two common-law marriages and an abortion), and was used heavily by her primary biographer as a source for reconstructing the events of her early life. It also predates her embrace of Catholicism by several years, and Day later admitted having put some effort into destroying as many copies of the book as she could find -- which probably accounts for its extreme scarcity today.

Product Info

Publisher: Albert and Charles Boni

Year: 1924

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

ReadInk

Address: 2261 West 21st St. Los Angeles, California

Website: https://www.readinkbooks.com

Country: United States