Apologies to those of you who follow me on Twitter who will already know this image. After another rewarding trip to The Pallant House Gallery in Chichester the other day I was struck by the number of well known, Twentieth Century artists, many of them who might be termed "neo-romantics" that illustrated jackets or covers for books. This then led to wayward thoughts of how wonderful a collection of such books might look. Obviously, I stamped down hard on such thoughts...
...so the next day I am perusing a bookshop in Salisbury and I see this. I had to have it for its style. However, the artist is not credited. It is quite possible that the two squiggles above the AU of VAUGHAN are initials, and they might be D.M. or P.M. So I am leaving it here in case of anyone out there being able to help.
The book is published by Johnathan Cape in 1952 and one of their most prolific illustrators was Pat Marriott, who got her first commission for Cape in exactly 1952. It is possible this is her work, however, the style is just a little bit wide of what she did elsewhere for the company and I have found no jackets known to be by her that have her initials on them so it remains a mystery.