FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION. Reviewing STW's fourth novel in The Nation, Mary McCarthy enthused: 'the dénouement of Summer Will Show, where elegance burns into fervor, seems to me the most triumphal single moment in revolutionary fiction, so the whole elaborate, fine-spun novel seems the most skilful, the most surefooted, sensitive, witty piece of prose yet to have been colored by left-wing ideology' (1936). STW's historical fiction used the setting of the French revolution of 1848 to comment on the fraught politics of the period; it was published during the year she worked, briefly, alongside her partner Valentine Ackland (to whom the novel is dedicated), for the British Red Cross in Barcelona. Politics and sex intertwine, as Sophia Willoughby falls for her husband's mistress Minna and becomes involved in the revolution. Though unnamed, Summer Will Show includes the most explicit representation of a lesbian relationship in STW's fiction. A lovely, near fine copy, unusual in the original dust jacket.