The Starlight Barking Signed by Dodie Smith first edition 1967
London: Heinemann, 1967
*Signed by Dodie Smith an inscribed to the actress Valerie White*
8vo., bright blue publisher’s boards gilt to backstrip; in the original clipped dustwrapper with 39 illustrations, decorative endpapers showing ‘The Great Swoosh’, and a jacket design by Janet and Anne Grahame-Johnstone; pp. [viii], 144, [viii]; compression/bumps to spine ends and corners, with a little associated darkening; outer edges a trifle spotted, otherwise a clean, near-fine example, in the very good dustwrapper, slightly discoloured along the backstrip, with rubbing and darkening to edges; some small nicks and closed tears, no more than 2cm in length and discreetly repaired to verso with tape.
First edition, this copy inscribed by the author to the actress Valerie White in the year of publication: “To Valerine White, from Dodie Smith. ‘Dear Octopus’ Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 1967.” Dear Octopus was a comic play written by Smith which originally opened at the Queen's Theatre, London on 14 September 1938. The 1967 revival was the first following the outbreak of the Second World War, with Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert heading the cast.
The English Novelist and Playwright Dodie Smith (1896-1990) is perhaps best known today for her 1948 novel I Capture the Castle, as well as the children’s classic, The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Born in Lancashire, she was raised by her mother and grandparents in Old Trafford, and she credits her grandfather William, an avid theatregoer, as her inspiration to become a playwright. Smith wrote her first play aged just 10 years old, and by 1914 had enrolled at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her fourth play, Call it a Day was received well, and in 1938 she completed Dear Octopus, which first starred John Gielgud. The show ran for 373 performances until it was halted by the outbreak of WWII.
After moving to America with her husband The Hundred and One Dalmatians was published in 1956, based in part on Smith’s love of the breed (at one point she owned 15 puppies), and her beloved pooch, Pongo. The idea for the novel was conceived when it is reported that a friend commented on the group of them together ‘those dogs would make a lovely fur coat’.
The Starlight Barking is a direct sequel to Smith’s timeless classic, and follows on from the previous book, reintroducing Pongo and Missis as the starring protagonists. With their puppies fully grown, life seems blissful for the two dogs - that is, until they discover that their humans, Mr and Mrs Dearly, have fallen into a slumber from which they cannot awaken. When they realise that the affliction has befallen all humans and creatures except dogs, Pongo takes over. The dogs all form a cabinet meeting, and meet in Trafalgar Square for advice from Sirius, the ‘dog star’, where they learn the secret of the mystery. An extraordinary premise from Smith, the book was published to bafflement, with some claiming the influence of the space race and moon landings for the author’s bizarre forray into the somewhat Science Fiction themed nature of the work.
Valerie White was a South African-born actress who appeared in no less than 35 screen works over the course of her lifetime, famously in Travels with My Aunt (1972) and Hue and Cry (1947). On stage she is best known for The Winslow Boy (1947-1948) where she was cast as Catherine Winslow. She also performed in James Hadley Chase's musical Get a Load of This (1941) at the London Hippodrome.