Visionary Poems and Passages, or The Poet's Eye (1944, first edition)

With sixteen colour lithographs by John Craxton

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition, first printing. Hardback with pictorial cloth designed and lettered by Craxton to front and rear boards. 21 × 14cm, vi + 122pp.

Visionary Poems and Passages; or, The Poet's Eye was the second title in the New Excursions into English Poetry series. Grigson assembled a collection of English poetry centred on intense visual observation and visionary experience. The anthology brought together poets ranging from Thomas Traherne, William Blake, and John Clare to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and modern contemporaries.

The 22 year old John Craxton was chosen as an emerging figure in the British Neo-Romantic movement to illustrate, and he created sixteen full-page colour lithographs, as well as smaller black and white drawings within the text. All sixteen are present.

Condition

This is a good plus copy. There is tanning and foxing to the page's and board's edges but the contents are in very good condition, with just a little marginal tanning. As mentioned, the book has been collated and all plates are present. Neat previous owner's inscription to ffep.