Barnes, Djuna. The Antiphon. Faber & Faber, 1958. 127 pp. Hardcover, FIRST EDITION.

DJUNA BARNES, The Antiphon. Faber & Faber, 1958. First edition. 127 pp. Hardcover. Dust jacket shows signs of wear, some discoloration and aging, some foxing on the inside. Overall in good condition. 

A three-act tragedy in verse, The Antiphon is based on Barnes' family history, written from her point of view, and it is the work she considered her most important. 

As quoted from a portrait of the author by Robert Giroux for the New York Times (1985): “It is as fantastic a play as the stage set Djuna Barnes prescribes for it, with a balustrade on which hang 'flags, gonfalons, bonnets, ribbons and all manner of stage costumes. . . . A long table with a single settle facing front, at either end of which is set the half of a gryphon, once a car in a roundabout . . . . surrounded by music stands, horns, fiddles, guncases, bandboxes, masks, toys and broken statues, man and beast.'  This unlikely setting, to which members of the family have journeyed from the four corners of the earth for a reunion, serves as a kind of baroque courtroom in which we are the spectators while the whole family is put on trial.” 

Ms. Barnes was always smartly groomed and often wore black suits with a brightly colored or polka-dot scarf at her throat. She called herself “the most famous unknown in the world.” Get to know the unknown woman with this gorgeous edition, worthy of a formidable character and celebrated writer.