The Laughing Torso. Reminiscences of Nina Hamnett

London: Constable, 1932.

First Edition. 8vo. pp ix, 326. Photographic frontispiece plus 15 b/w plates and sketches in the text. Publisher's black cloth with spine silvertone decoration to spine, slightly rubbed. Light spotting to endpapers and edge of text block. Tips of corners bumped. Not an easy book to find in first edition, hence Hildreth Press issued a new edition in 2007 to fill demand. "Nina Hamnett wrote these memoirs in 1932 when she was 42. She was primarily a painter and a painter's model and was part of the modernist movement; moving between Paris and London from about 1910 to 1925 (with several forays to the south of France and Brittany). She has also been described as avant-garde and bohemian. The memoirs are engaging, rather self-deprecating and frank. Hamnett also manages to be discreet at the same time, not naming some of those closest to her, or just using initials or nationalities" [Goodreads]