1914 and Other Poems

1915, tenth impression in a scarce original dustwrapper.

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition, tenth impression. Hardback in rare dustwrapper. 19.5 × 13cm, 63pp (spare title label to rear).

This is an early edition of Robert Brooke's 1914 and Other Poems, printed at The Complete Press, West Norwood, and in the original dustwrapper. This title contains his famous five poems (including The Soldier—"If I should die...") written in the first autumn of the Great War and gained immense popularity when published in poetry journals of the time, and even more so when, a few weeks before his death, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral read it at the Easter Sunday service. This is followed by The Treasure which acts as a preface to '1914'. The book also contains The South Seas, other poems, and The Old Vicarage, Grantchester. The book is illustrated with a tissue-guarded frontispiece of Sherril Schell's photograph of Brooke.

Condition

The book has very clean black cloth boards, and the title label is unusually crisp. There is quite heavy spotted foxing to the page edges and lesser spotting to the prelims, and margins of the last few pages. The dustwrapper is a very rare survival, and is also quite heavily spotted with foxing to the top and right hand edge of the upper panel, and with some marks to the rear panel. The wrapper sits a few millimetres shy of the top of the book but is the original wrapper for this book as it also has "tenth impression" printed to the front. Light wear to the spine ends but otherwise complete. The book remains in strong readable condition, and the wrapper is in a protective sleeve.