Magpies in Picardy.
London: The Poetry Bookshop, 1919 Stock Code: 114792
First edition, first impression, in the very scarce dust jacket designed by Claude Lovat Fraser. A poignant copy, with a laid-in note inscribed by Wilson's bereaved parents in pencil to the Vicar of Tunbridge Wells: "Rev: J. F. A. Wicksteed with all good wishes from A. F. & T. Cameron Wilson, Paignton". The poet, Captain Theodore Percival Cameron Wilson (1889-1918), 10th Battalion Sherwood Foresters, was the son of a clergyman who became a schoolmaster and by the outbreak of the First World War had written two novels (the first, The Friendly Enemy, published in 1913, the second, Bolts From the Blue, posthumously in 1929) and had various poems and articles published in periodicals. He was a close friend of Harold Monro of the Poetry Bookshop, which published this, his collection of war poetry. Wilson was killed during Germany's Spring Offensive on 23 March 1918. Oddly the paper on which the parents' inscription appears bears the shadowed title of Wilson's latterly published novel Bolts From the Blue on it - most likely the inscription was made out in a copy of Bolts from the Blue and then clipped by Wicksteed and laid-in to his copy of this more significant collection of war poems.
Description
Octavo. Original black cloth backed boards, title label to spine and front, front cover decorated in black. With the dust jacket similarly decorated.
Condition
Tanning to spine label and somewhat around board edges, light rubbing to ends and corners, offset toning to title page. A very good copy in the jacket which has some light marks and tears to spine ends and corners, with reinforcement to spine ends verso.
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