Something Leather.

GRAY, Alasdair. [Sally Soames].

$275.00

Item Number: 124163

London: Jonathan Cape, 1990.

First edition of Alasdair Gray’s sensational novel. Octavo, original cloth decorated in gilt. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Sally from Alasdair 27 June 1990 Glasgow.” The recipient, British photojournalist Sally Soames, worked for The Sunday Times from 1968 until 2000 and was highly regarded for her exclusively black and white portraits of many of the most prominent figures of the 20th century including Menachem Begin, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Thatcher, Sean Connery, Rudolf Nureyev, Alec Guinness and Andy Warhol. Soames, who was known to be a warm and personal journalist, performed extensive research on her subjects and developed intimate rapports with them during her process, resulting in striking and revealing portraits. In addition to the several world leaders Soames came to know and photograph, she captured the unique personalities of some of the world’s most gifted authors, poets, and playwrights. She published two books of photographs during her lifetime: Manpower (1987) with text by Robin Morgan and an introduction by Harold Evans and Writers (1995) with a preface by Norman Mailer. Fine in a very good dust jacket.

A novel-in-stories, Something Leather is about the love-lives of four women: June, Senga, Donalda, and a distant cousin of a queen from 1963 to 1990; its framing narrative being the story of June's initiation into sado-masochistic activities by the female operators of a leather clothing shop in Glasgow.