Songs of Childhood.
New York & Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1902 Stock Code: 126987
First edition, first impression, of de la Mare's first book, presentation copy from the author, inscribed on the front free endpaper, "Walter de la Mare for Elbridge Adams with his best wishes" accompanied by the final stanza of his poem "The Buckle", "I had a secret laughter, I laughed it near the wall:, Only the ivy & the wind, May tell of it at all, February 1929". Adams ran The Fountain Press in New York. A Songs of Childhood is a collection of poems, some of which are aimed "directly at child readers, others recreate the state of childhood itself - to him always life's summit - its pure wonder, intuitions, solitary fantasy, and above all its readiness to see this world as part of another, no less real for being magical and spiritual" (ODNB). De La Mare's pseudonym "Walter Ramal" was a short-lived persona, and he started publishing under his own name in 1904. A particularly nice copy.
Description
Octavo. Original quarter vellum, ruled gilt, blue cloth with gilt publisher's device, top edge gilt. Housed in a blue morocco slipcase and blue folder.
Illustrations
Sepia frontispiece from a drawing by Richard Doyle with tissue guard.
Condition
With the bookplates of. H. Bradley Martin and Brian Fenwick-Smith to inner panels of chemise, and of Mildred and Harold Greenhill to front pastedown. A near-fine copy, clean and fresh throughout, though with the usual tanning to the spine.
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