[Ethel Boileau, novelist.] Corrected Autograph Manuscripts of two of her best-selling novels: 'Clansmen' and 'Turnip-Tops'.

Boileau was extremely popular throughout her career, her novels propounding her philosophy (as expounded in 'Turnip Tops') that 'Courage is the foundation of all character and achievement.' In 1936 'John o'London's' magazine described her as the author of books 'whose editions have run into tens of thousands'. Her novel 'Turnip Tops', published in 1932 (and in America by Dutton as 'A Gay Family'), had sold 28,000 copies by 1936 ('one of the merriest sellers of the last few years', according to Maboth Moseley), and 25,000 copies of 'Ballade in G Minor' (1938) were sold before publication. In a review of 5 June 1936, The Times found 'Clansmen' an 'entertaining' novel, 'full of uncompromising characterisations and some compromising episodes'. Boileau corresponded with Ayn Rand, and saw her 'literary mission', according to Rand's biographer Anne C. Heller, as 'a defense of individualism'. The two items are both in good condition, on lightly aged and worn paper, with the leaves held together with ribbon. Text on rectos only. Both in heavily-worn wraps. ONE: [on cover:] 'TURNIP-TOPS. | BY | Ethel Boileau | Published by Messrs Hutchinson. | 1932'. 477pp., 8vo. In green card wraps; tied with orange ribbon. Heavily corrected from the first page. A humorous account of a contemporary English country family, with fox-hunting and references to Charlie Chaplin, Siegfried Sassoon and Quaglino's. One reviewer found the book 'entertaining reading and some of the descriptions of out-door life, notably the Point-to-Point of the Deepshire Hunt, are flrst-rate.' TWO: [on first leaf:] 'Clansmen | by | Ethel Boileau. | Strath-peffer Ross-shire. | September 4th. 1934.' Dated on last page: 'Jan 11th. 1935. | Ketteringham Park | Wymondham Norfolk.' In brown card wraps; tied with white ribbon. 891pp., 8vo. Another modern-day family chronicle, describing how, in the words of the Times reviewer, 'the fighting elder line of the Stewarts of Ardbreck still kept the land in the Highlands [...] and the younger branch had lots of money', containing 'mordant descriptions' of high society.