Poetry
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NICOLSON, Harold. Verlaine.London : [1921]
First edition, first impression, of the author's first book, an uncut copy with an exceptional example of the rare dust jacket. Nicolson's Verlaine is rare in the dust jacket - we have only seen one other, and can trace none at auction - this copy, almost untouched and unopened, is rarer still in such condition.
Harold Nicolson (1886-1968)... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 143337
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HUGHES, Ted. The Hawk in the Rain.London : 1957
First edition, first impression, of the author's first book. This copy comes from the library of the author V. S. Pritchett, with his signed book label to the front pastedown. This is a great association copy. Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 148197
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SMITH, Stevie. Not Waving but Drowning.London : 1957
First edition, first impression. The poet and novelist Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith (1902-1971), was awarded the Cholmondeley Award for Poets and won the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry. Hugh Whitemore's play, Stevie, based on her life, was adapted into a film starring Glenda Jackson. Learn More£400.00Stock Code: 148207
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AUDEN, W. H. (ed.) The Oxford Book of Light Verse.Oxford : 1941
A handsomely bound copy of this collection of poetry, edited with an introduction by Auden, first published in 1939. This copy was specially bound for the Times Book Club (with their stamp to the front free endpaper). Learn More£200.00Stock Code: 147629
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BURNS, Robert. The Complete Works.Philadelphia : 1895
The Ayrshire Edition, number 23 of 50 sets only, very handsomely bound. Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 146510
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HEANEY, Seamus. Selected Poems 1965-1975.London : 1980
First edition, first impression, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the title page: "Seamus Heaney October 29 1986 'Dig' it!" The reference is, undoubtedly, to Heaney's poem "Digging" and was used on other occasions by the poet.
Although unmarked as such, this is from the library of Dennis Saunders, one of the poet's long-term friends.... Learn More£600.00Stock Code: 148456
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HEANEY, Seamus. The Haw Lantern.London : 1987
First edition, first impression, signed and dated by the author on the title page: "Seamus Heaney 26.6.87". The signature dates from the month of publication, as recorded by Brandes and Durkan.
Although unmarked as such, this is from the library of Dennis Saunders, one of the poet's long-term friends. Saunders organised poetry conferences for... Learn More£375.00Stock Code: 148479
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LOCKER, Frederick. London Lyrics.London : 1881
First privately printed edition, large paper issue with frontispiece and illustration (not present in the ordinary issue), this copy in the deluxe vellum binding, other copies issued in cloth.
"Austin Dobson made the selection for the privately printed edition, and prefixed the prefatory sexain... very few copies were printed" (Murray); the... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 144310
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BYRON, George Gordon Noel, Lord. Don Juan.London : 1819 & 1821
First octavo edition of cantos I and II and first edition of cantos III to V, forming Byron's last and greatest work.
The first two cantos were first published the same year in quarto; none of Byron's writings since the first two cantos of Childe Harold seven years earlier had appeared in such a large and expensive format: the volume sold for... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 148457
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DICKEY, James. The Water-Bug's Mittens.Bloomfield Hills, Michigan : 1980
Signed limited edition, number 146 of 350 copies signed by Dickey. The Water-Bug's Mittens was first published the previous year following James Dickey's Fifth Annual Pound Lecture on the evening of 26 April 1979 at the University of Idaho. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 148463
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THOMAS, Dylan. Two Epigrams of Fealty.[London] : 1953
First and only edition, number 27 of just "Thirty memorial copies privately printed for Members of the Court". This is a superb copy of this work, among the scarcest pieces in Thomas's canon.
Redonda is a small uninhabited Caribbean island which is a part of Antigua and Barbuda, in the Leeward Islands, West Indies. Discovered and ignored by Columbus,... Learn More£400.00Stock Code: 148454
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OMAR KHAYYÁM; HALL, Isabel Hawxhurst (illus.) RubáiyátNew York : 1911
First Hall edition, first printing, inscribed by the artist on the front free endpaper: "With the compliments of Isabel Hawxhurst Hall". This edition of the Rubáiyát is the only book illustrated by Hall (1887-1952), who later worked as a designer of stained glass windows, wallpaper, and textiles.
The text of this edition, Fitzgerald's translation,... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 147897
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HEANEY, Seamus. Crediting Poetry. The Nobel Lecture.London : 1996
First UK edition, first impression, signed by the author on the half-title. One of 500 copies printed for private circulation, this is a finely produced edition of the text of Heaney's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, delivered in December 1995. It is preceded by the Gallery Books paperback published in Ireland the previous year. Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 148157
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NORSE, Harold. The Undersea Mountain.Denver : 1953
First edition, first printing, of Norse's first book of poetry, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "For Jim from Harold Paris 1961".
Harold Norse (1916-2009) was an avant-garde poet, best remembered today as a member of the Beat movement and, in Lawrence Ferlinghetti's words, "an expatriate voice in American poetry" (LA Times).... Learn More£675.00Stock Code: 148159
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SHAKESPEARE, William. The Songs, Poems, and Sonnets.London : [c.1885]
An attractively bound copy of Shakespeare's poetry, edited by William Sharp for the Canterbury Poets series. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 145835
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GRAVES, Robert. Across the Gulf: Late Poems.Deià, Majorca : 1992
First and signed limited edition, number 26 of 175, signed by the members of the New Seizin Press: Beryl Graves, Lucia Graves, Dunstan Ward, Tomás Graves, and Carmen García Gutierrez. These previously unpublished poems were written by Graves in his seventies, and were posthumously selected by his wife Beryl Graves for the spiritual successor to Graves's... Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 146636
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KIPLING, Rudyard. The Works.London : 1937-39
The Sussex Edition, number 513 of a limited edition of 525 sets signed by the author on the limitation leaf of vol. I. In his last years and with his health failing Kipling continued the gathering-up of existing material that resulted in "the great retrospective work... the Sussex Edition of his works, undertaken by Macmillan as a monument to one of... Learn More£15,000.00Stock Code: 139233
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NERUDA, Pablo. Nuevo Canto de Amor a Stalingrado.Mexico : 1943
First edition, ordinary issue, presentation copy inscribed by the author "Los Guindos 1944 A Marci Garcés con el afecto de Pablo Neruda" on first leaf. One of 5,025 copies of which this is one of 5,000 on paper. The poem was read by the author in honour of the U.S.S.R. on 29 January 1943. Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 148412
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BELL, Clive. Poems.Richmond : 1921
First edition, sole impression, one of 350 unnumbered copies only, this one marked "not for sale" to front pastedown and found here with an early custom hand-marbled dust jacket, very much in the Hogarth style.
This copy has a highly distinguished collectors' provenance, bearing the loosely inserted bookplate of Robert Reedman, associated with... Learn More£1,000.00Stock Code: 145470
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GRAY, Thomas. Poems.London : 1768
First collected edition, handsomely bound. It includes some of Gray's most popular works, such as "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", and collects poems from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), Designs by Mr. Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray (1753) and Odes, by Mr. Gray, Printed at Strawberry Hill (1757).
For the present... Learn More£950.00Stock Code: 146901
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FROST, Robert. A Boy's Will.London : 1913
First edition, first impression, of Frost's first published book, an exceptional presentation copy, inscribed by him to fellow Dymock poet Wilfrid W. Gibson on the front free endpaper, "W.W.G. from R.F. Sept. 1913", perhaps on the occasion they first met, when Frost gave a poetry reading at Harold Monro's newly-opened Poetry Bookshop.
When A... Learn More£17,500.00Stock Code: 146535
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LOWELL, Amy; and others. Some Imagist Poets.Boston & New York : 1915
First edition, first printing, inscribed by Lowell on the front free endpaper in the month of publication: "Elsie, with lots of love from Amy. April. 1915."
Some Imagist Poets was edited by Lowell and published a year after the first Imagist anthology, Ezra Pound's Des Imagistes. In her preface, Lowell describes how her intentions as an Imagist... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 146789
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GINSBERG, Allen. Bixby Canyon Ocean Path Word Breeze.New York : 1972
First edition, first printing, paperbound issue, one of an unknown run, inscribed by the author on the title page, "For Bill Butler, in Sunlight in Brighton July 16, 1973", with his signature beneath his printed name.
Bill Butler (1934-1977) was a significant figure of the British literary counterculture scene of the 1960s and 1970s, and from... Learn More£400.00Stock Code: 145609
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HEANEY, Seamus. Beowulf.London : 1999
First edition, first impression, signed by the author on the title page. Heaney's translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, which he dedicated to the memory of Ted Hughes (1930-1998), won the 1999 Whitbread Book of the Year award. Learn More£600.00Stock Code: 145566
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ROLFE, Frederick, Baron Corvo. The Songs of Meleager.London : [1937]
First edition, first impression, a notably attractive copy. This edition is printed with the English translation alongside the original Greek text. From the library of Hardy Amies, with his neat bookplate to the front pastedown. Amies held the Royal Warrant as dressmaker for Queen Elizabeth II, who worked for her from her accession to the throne 1952... Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 145607
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SHARP, William, as Fiona MacLeod. Runes of Woman.Portland, ME : 1915
First edition, one of 450 copies printed on Van Gelder paper, in the uncommon printed glassine jacket, this copy in notably smart condition.
Writer and editor William Sharp (1855-1905) adopted the pseudonym Fiona MacLeod in 1894 and secretly wrote under this name for the rest of his life. Sharp "constructed an elaborate series of deceptions,... Learn More£225.00Stock Code: 144999
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COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor. The Poetical Works.London : 1828
First collected edition, one of 300 copies; there were also 12 copies printed on large paper. J. Dykes Campbell, later a biographer of Coleridge, wrote in 1888 that his copy of this edition "must be a rare book... from whatever cause, its scarcity is incontestable" (The Athenaeum, p. 307).
Coleridge was unhappy with the work, which was succeeded,... Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 147753
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SACKVILLE-WEST, Vita. The Land.London : 1926
First trade edition, first impression, signed by the author on the front free endpaper, together with an autograph letter signed from her. This is a rare variant copy, with the four wood engravings that were published only in the signed limited issue; in this copy, they are tipped in and unusually also signed by the artist.
This variant, not... Learn More£2,000.00Stock Code: 145944
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SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe. The Poetical Works.London : 1839
First collected edition, an appealing copy in the deluxe red cloth. Mary Shelley's collected edition of her husband's poetical works established Shelley finally and irreversibly amongst the great poets of the English language.
Pirate editions of Shelley's works had persuaded his father, Sir Timothy, that all hope of obscurity had passed, and... Learn More£2,000.00Stock Code: 147575
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RYLANDS, George. Russet and Taffeta.London : 1925
First edition, first impression, signed by Rylands on the title page and inscribed by him on the front free endpaper with a quote from Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 2: "Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise.../ I do forswear them....../ Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd / In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes."
... Learn More£1,500.00Stock Code: 145958
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SACKVILLE-WEST, Vita. The Garden.London : 1946
First edition, signed limited issue, number 551 of 750 copies, numbered and signed by the author, and beautifully produced on handmade paper. Learn More£600.00Stock Code: 145952
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SHOVE, Fredegond. Daybreak.Richmond : 1922
First edition, first impression, with the errata slip loosely inserted. One of only 250 copies hand-printed by the Woolfs. As with many of the hand-printed Hogarth books, this copy has one of a number of the variant patterned papers to the boards. Copies in such good condition are rare, upside-down ones rarer still.
This copy has a highly distinguished... Learn More£1,500.00Stock Code: 145727
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BLOOMSBURY - STRACHEY, Lytton; Leonard Woolf; Clive Bell; and others. Euphrosyne.Cambridge : 1905
First edition, sole impression, of this rare poetry anthology that constitutes the very first "Bloomsbury" publication, with anonymous contributions by Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, and Saxon Sidney-Turner, all peers at Trinity College, Cambridge. This copy has a further Bloomsbury Group association, coming from the library of two Bloomsburyites,... Learn More£6,000.00Stock Code: 145525
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GRAVES, Robert. The Feather Bed.Richmond : 1923
First and limited edition, number 214 of 250 copies signed by the author on the limitation page.
"In The Feather Bed Graves presented the monologue of a young man fatigued in mind and body 'and under the stress of an abnormal conflict,' as an 'Introductory Letter' to John Crowe Ransom described him. Graves's young man carries on an internal... Learn More£1,000.00Stock Code: 145523
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ELIOT, T. S. The Waste Land.Richmond : 1923
First UK edition in book form, sole impression, one of about 460 copies hand-printed by the Woolfs, with the title label in the first state with asterisks (one of three states noted by Gallup, with no priority). This is a great association copy, with the bookplate of the novelist and playwright Richard Arthur Warren Hughes on the front pastedown.
Hughes... Learn More£8,750.00Stock Code: 145515
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VIVIEN, Renée. Les Kitharèdes.Paris : 1904
First edition thus, first printing, presentation copy inscribed on the front free endpaper "A Léon Bocquet, avec mes très sincères remerciements de son aimable accueil littéraire, Renée Vivien". This wonderful translation of the female lyric poets of classical Greece (imagined as the "Cythereans" of the island of Aphrodite) followed Vivien's groundbreaking... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 145267
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TREVELYAN, R. C. Rimeless Numbers.London : 1932
First edition, first impression, one of 400 copies. Pre-publication presentation copy, inscribed by Trevelyan on the front free endpaper, to the Canadian artist, and dedicatee of Trevelyan's Idylls of Theocritus, Elizabeth Muntz (1894-1977): "'E.M.' Betty, from R.C.T. 21 April 1932". The edition was not published until May. Learn More£350.00Stock Code: 145054
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GRAVES, Robert, as John Doyle. The Marmosite's Miscellany.London : 1925
First edition, first impression. Robert Graves only used the pseudonym of John Doyle for this one work but he adopted a number of pen names throughout his early career, particularly for contributions to periodicals such as The Carthusian, The Spectator, and Woman's Leader. The Sussex ledge shows 106 copies sold by 6 January 1928.
This copy has... Learn More£575.00Stock Code: 144345
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RANSOM, John Crowe. Grace After Meat.London : 1924
First edition, first impression, presentation copy inscribed on the front free endpaper "Miss Laura M. Bragg, with the author's cordial regards, John Crowe Ransom, November 17, 1924". Uncommon inscribed; a great association copy.
Laura Bragg (1881-1978) notably co-founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina in 1920 as part of Charleston's renaissance.... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 144237
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CLUTTON-BROCK, Arthur. Simpson's Choice.London : 1915
First edition, first impression, one of 500 copies printed (this copy unnumbered). Simpson's Choice was the first work to be published at the Omega Workshop, which was founded in July 1913, and was to be one of only four books completed by the press.
The original prospectus (not present here) stated the intention of this enterprise, declaring... Learn More£2,750.00Stock Code: 141226
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SACKVILLE-WEST, Vita. Orchard and Vineyard.London : 1921
First edition, first impression, signed by the author on the front free endpaper. Orchard and Vineyard is Sackville-West's third book of poetry. Learn More£1,500.00Stock Code: 136487
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GRAVES, Robert. Mock Beggar Hall.London : 1924
First edition, first impression. "The whole tone of the book is philosophical involving a series of meditations on relativity and Time" (Patrick J. Quinn ed., New Perspectives on Robert Graves, 1999, p. 75). Nicholson's sinister cover design of a hanging bat is stunning. Learn More£475.00Stock Code: 110245
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OMEGA PRESS. Original Woodcuts by Various Artists.London : 1918
First and only edition, number 52 of 75 copies. This important Omega Workshops production includes woodcuts by Roger Fry ("Still Life", "The Cup", "The Stocking", and "Harliquinade" after Mark Gertler), Vanessa Bell ("Nude"), Duncan Grant ("The Hat Shop", "The Tub"), Edward Wolfe ("Ballet", "Group"), Edward McKnight-Kauffer ("Study"), Simon Bussy ("Black... Learn More£8,750.00Stock Code: 98564
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BLAKE, William. Songs of Innocence.Clairvaux : 1954
First edition thus, number 169 of 1,600 copies. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 148210
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OMAR KHAYYÁM; FITZGERALD, Edward (trans.) RubáiyátCambridge, MA : 1909
Limited centennial edition, number 43 of 50 copies only, signed by the President, Treasurer, and Chairman of the Omar Khayyám Club of America. This is a faithful and scarce facsimile of the first edition of Fitzgerald's Rubáiyát, printed on Japanese vellum and published on 31 March 1909.
Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubáiyát, originally... Learn More£950.00Stock Code: 147877
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OMAR KHAYYÁM; POGÁNY, Willy (illus.) Rubáiyát.New York : [1930]
Signed limited edition, number 82 of 500 copies printed for the United States and signed by the artist, specially bound and with an original etching facing the title page, also signed by Pogány; there were also 750 copies printed for the UK and published by George G. Harrap & Co. Pogány's illustrated edition was first published in 1909.
Fitzgerald's... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 147882
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SACKVILLE-WEST, Vita. Sissinghurst.London : 1931
First and limited edition, number 457 of 500 copies hand-printed by the Woolfs and signed by the author. Learn More£950.00Stock Code: 145967
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GRISWOLD, Rufus Wilmot (ed.) The Cypress Wreath:Boston : 1844
First edition of this American consolation anthology. The editor Griswold (1815-1857) "produced a flood of gift books containing the sentimental poetry popular at the time", and was considered by his contemporaries "an expert on American poetry" (ANB). Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 146045
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JOYCE, James. Pomes Penyeach.Paris : 1927
First edition, first impression, of this collection of thirteen of Joyce's poems. Beneath each poem the place and year of composition are provided; they range from 1904 to 1924. The first poem, 'Tilly' is named after the Irish custom of providing customers a free extra serving; the book was sold at 12 shillings, so the thirteenth poem came "free".
This... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 148251
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DONNE, John. Paradoxes and Problems.Soho : 1923
First Nonesuch edition, one of 645 copies printed in the Fell types on handmade paper, this copy out of series and marked "Hilda's copy" in ink by the printer, Francis Meynell (1891-1975). Hilda Peppercorn (1886-1962), a concert pianist (performing as Hilda Saxe), was Meynell's first wife. Learn More£300.00Stock Code: 148122
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STALLINGS, A. E. Archaic Smile.Evansville : 1999
First edition, first printing, presentation copy inscribed on the title "To Ginger, with gratitude for all your good work! Alicia. 24.i.01, Atlanta". This collection of poems, by the recipient of the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award, is uncommon in such fine condition and especially so inscribed. Learn More£300.00Stock Code: 148105
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SHAKESPEARE, William. The Poems and Sonnets.London : 1903
An attractively bound copy of this limited edition printed on handmade paper, number 23 of 400 copies.
In his introduction to the present volume, scholar and poet Edward Dowden (1843-1913), writes that, when we read Shakespeare's poetry, we learn that he "was capable of measureless personal devotion; that he was tenderly sensitive, sensitive... Learn More£875.00Stock Code: 147775
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ANGELOU, Maya. Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie.New York : 1971
First edition, first printing, of the author's first book of poetry, warmly inscribed on the front free endpaper: "For Richard Gildenmeister, Dick, Brother, you are a boon, a boon for me, for us, (for the species) Please write! and write on! Your sister (How-be-it-now) Maya". Richard Gildenmeister is a former bookseller based in Cleveland, Ohio, where... Learn More£575.00Stock Code: 147853
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RIMBAUD, Arthur. A Season in Hell.London : [1932]
First edition in English, first impression, number 537 of 600 copies only. First published in 1873, this prose poem was finished in a frenzy after the break-up of Rimbaud's relationship with Verlaine who shot him with a revolver in the summer of that year. Copies in such good condition and in the jacket are rare. Learn More£350.00Stock Code: 148025
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BRAUTIGAN, Richard. Please Plant This Book.San Francisco / Santa Barbara : 1968
First edition, sole impression, a scarce complete set of these eight poems by Richard Brautigan printed on the back of coloured seed packets.
Copies were issued for free with the injunction that they be planted: "The time is right to mix sentences, sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and the rain with verbs, and for worms to pass... Learn More£1,100.00Stock Code: 148029
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ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel. The Blessèd Damozel.Aiken : 1900
First edition thus, number 25 of 500 copies printed on Whatman paper, one of 100 only illuminated in water-colours. This copy has a lithographic illustration, after the author and printed on Japanese vellum, loosely inserted. A very attractive printing of Rossetti's Blessed Damozel, the most famous of his poems, first published in 1850. Learn More£375.00Stock Code: 148030
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BUKOWSKI, Charles. Shakespeare Never Did This.San Francisco : 1979
First edition, first impression, signed on the title page by Montfort and Bukowski. This is a fresh copy of "a wryly comic view of Europe as only Bukowski could see it and a moving journey back to his lost past and the small town of his birth (Andernach, Germany) via his triumphant tour as a literary celebrity" (front flap). Learn More£650.00Stock Code: 148045
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DANTE ALIGHIERI. The Vision; or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.London : 1819
Second and best edition of one of the most important translations of Dante of the Romantic era, following the very scarce first edition which appeared in 1814 in such a diminutive format that it was barely legible.
"In January 1797 Cary began his translation of Dante's Divina commedia into blank verse. He started with the Purgatorio in 1797-8,... Learn More£2,750.00Stock Code: 146519
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CARNEVALI, Emanuel. A Hurried Man.Paris : [1925]
First edition, first impression, of the only work by Italian writer Emanuel Carnevali (1897-1942) to be published in his lifetime. This book is uncommonly found, especially in such good condition.
After moving to the United States in 1914 at the age of 16, Carnevali became friends with poets such as William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound and... Learn More£1,000.00Stock Code: 147823
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PLATH, Sylvia. Ariel.London : 1965
First edition, first impression. Plath's most enduring poetry book, published two years after her suicide, edited by Ted Hughes and with an introduction by Robert Lowell. Plath believed her Ariel poems to be the best she had ever produced, "announcing to her mother that 'they will make my name'" (ODNB). Learn More£1,575.00Stock Code: 144272
