Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

With an introduction by roy fuller. this edition is limited to 362 copies...this is copy no. 240

Item Description

FIRST EDITION THUS. 8vo. 9.5 x 6.25 inches. [6] + [iv] + 64 + [3] pp. Title page in red and black. Bound in original orange cloth with printed paper spine label. A very good clean copy. Signed by author below limited edition statement at end. Illustrated by portrait frontispiece. Fifty poems selected from the verse of war poet, Edgell Rickword (1898-1982). He joined the Artist Rifles in 1916, was commissioned to the Royal Berkshire Regiment and served on the Western Front where he was twice wounded and was awarded the MC. In 1919 he lost one eye, but had a long career as a critic and as an influential literary magazine editor, joining the CPGB in 1934. This collection contains five of his best war poems including the very powerful Trench Poets, as well as the more strangely entitled Regret for the Depopulation of Rural Districts and Complaint of a Tadpole confined in a Jam Jar. The poems are chosen from the three volumes published in 1921, 28 and the Collected Poems of 1947; two are published here in book form for the first time. Edited by Roy Fuller (1912-91), poet and novelist, who published from 1939 and was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 1968-73.