Author: OLIVE HAWKS. [Henry Williamson].
Title: What Hope for Green Street? (SIGNED)
Description: Jarrolds [1946]. 2nd Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Author(s). Second impression of Hawk's debut novel, written during her internment at Holloway Prison. This copy signed by the author on the title page and dated the year of publication. 8vo. 128pp. Black cloth lettered in gold at the spine. Cloth just a little marked in places, and lightly chafed at several extremities. A single short repaired tear to the margin of one leaf. A very good, bright copy, albeit printed on quite cheap wartime paper-stock. No dust wrapper. Hawks' novel was anonymously re-written prior to publication by Henry Williamson (in a letter dated 26th August 1945 to his long-time friend and subsequent biographer Lois Lamplugh, Williamson states "I rewrote a book for someone recently, it comes out soon with Jarrolds, called 'What Hope for Green Street?' After that, the first-author (whose work was jejune and only partly readable) must dree her own weird. I'll give no more advice.") The full extent of Williamson's rewrite is not possible to determine. The dust wrapper for Hawks' fourth novel, 'A Sparrow for a Farthing' (1950), notes that Hawks' debut "was discovered and launched by Henry Williamson" and Hawks was clearly thankful for his assistance, dedicating her second novel, 'Time is my Debtor' (1947), "Gratefully to Henry Williamson". Despite this we have found no evidence that the two knew each other or ever met, despite both being born and brought up in the same area of South East London, and both being members of the British Union of Fascists. An exceptionally scarce book (we have only ever handled a single copy previously), and even more so with the author's signature. Olive Hawks (1917-1992) was a leading female member of the British Union of Fascists. She became the party's Women's Organiser in Lewisham in 1934, appointed the prospective parliamentary candidate for Camberwell in 1937 and its national Chief Woman's Organiser by 1940. She was interned for four years as a Nazi sympathiser in 1940 and it was during this period that she wrote her first novel. It appears that she abandoned her Fascist sympathies after the war, publishing three further novels and a play before emigrating with her second husband and two sons. Very Good/No Jacket.

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