POETRY ANTHOLOGIES AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Oxford University Press, 1950. First edition. Inscribed and signed with forename by Ralph Currey on front free endpaper. Forty poems with an introduction and parallel text translations.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [ii],(xxii),(160)pp. Original green cloth, lettered in gilt; endpapers slightly tanned, but very good in the original green dust-jacket – lettered in black and decorated in white – the jacket lightly rubbed.

£20

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London : Faber & Faber, (1956). Seventh impression of the original 1943 publication. A sparkling anthology of over 700 passages of poetry and prose as De La Mare explores the differing themes of love – First Love, Grace and Beauty, Eros, The Fever and the Fret, Love Thwarted and Unrequited, Love Betrayed, Love Lamented, Constancy, Love in Grief, and much else besides. Spanning works from Homer to T. S. Eliot, and including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Marvell, Shelley, Keats, Yeats, Blake, Emily Brontë, Oscar Wilde and many more. “From its first page, then, to its last, this book has had for its compass merely my own personal, defective and deficient idea or conception of love. On that, apart from indolence and ignorance, the choice of its every poem, its every fallible statement has depended”.
Demy 8vo (214 x 129mm). cxliv,592pp. Coloured frontispiece, title vignette and black-and-white illustrations by Barnett Freedman (1901-1958). Bound by Zaehnsdorf in a contemporary full crushed russet morocco, banded and gilt; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; a few extremely faint marks, but a handsome copy. A few interesting pencilled notes by a previous owner.

£125

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Oxford : At the Clarendon Press, 1908. An early reprint of the original 1907 edition. Over 300 French poems, from Froissart and his contemporaries through to Verlaine, chosen, introduced, and furnished with notes by Lucas. “This new anthology of French poetry is, in its way, a perfect gem, reflecting the highest credit ... It is, without doubt, the most complete representation of poetry that has been placed before the English public” (Daily Telegraph) – “an ideal Christmas gift” (Manchester Courier).
Foolscap 8vo (163 x 100mm). (xxxvi),(492)pp. Bound in an elegant contemporary full calf prize binding for Merchant Taylors’ School; banded and gilt; school arms and the James Graves English Literature Prize legend on upper cover; marbled edges and matching endpapers; just a hint of rubbing; a handful of leaves at rear slightly creased (a production flaw), but otherwise a very good copy. Printed school presentation label made out in manuscript to J. D. Cowley laid in to front endpaper – this John Duncan Cowley (1897-1944), librarian, bibliographer, and squadron-leader killed by enemy action.

£125

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London : Nicholson & Watson, (1941). First edition. The first of Moore’s occasional wartime anthologies of new writing – with short stories by Kay Boyle, Gerald Kersh, Storm Jameson, Sidney Keyes, Marghanita Laski, William Saroyan, V. S. Pritchett, etc. – and poems from G. S. Fraser, David Gascoyne, Alun Lewis, Norman Nicholson, Anne Ridler, Alan Rook, Vernon Watkins and others. Edited by Moore (with assistance on the poetry from Tambimuttu).
Crown 8vo (19cm). (160)pp. Original pictorial wrappers by Hof; a touch shaken, but a very good copy in a lightly rubbed and slightly chipped dust-jacket – the Hof design repeated in full colour.

£20

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.London : Nicholson & Watson, [1942]. First edition. The second of Moore’s occasional wartime anthologies of new writing – with short stories by Elizabeth Bowen (The Demon Lover), Rhys Davies, Gwyn Jones, Gerald Kersh, Howard Spring, etc. – and poems (selected and introduced by Henry Treece) from Alex Comfort, J. F. Hendry, Robert Herring, Emanuel Litvinoff, Norman Nicholson, Herbert Read, Anne Ridler and others.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (160)pp. Original blue cloth, lettered in black; very slight fading of extremities, but a very good copy in a slightly worn dust-jacket, just slightly defective at head of spine.

£20

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Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : one of the 2,000 copies of the first impression, with the roman rather than gothic half-title, just four notes on p.323, etc. The original appearance of a perennial favourite – close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets – from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave.
Foolscap 8vo. [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in a smart recent half crimson morocco, banded and gilt – retaining the original cloth gilt (the priced, earliest variant) at rear; a handful of spots, a small flaw to the final leaf, but a very good copy. Contemporary ownership inscription on title-page and some neat pencil markings to margins in places.

£400

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Cambridge : Macmillan & Co., 1861. First edition : mixed issue – with the four (rather than six) notes on p.323, obviously indicating the earlier printing, but with the gothic (rather than plain) half-title. The original appearance of a perennial favourite – close on 300 of the finest poems in the language from seventy-five or so poets – from Sir Thomas Wyatt, Marlowe and Shakespeare, to Shelley and Keats. With a preface and some extensive notes by Palgrave.
Foolscap 8vo (162 x 103mm). [4],[viii],332pp. Engraved vignette by Charles Henry Jeens (1827-1879) after Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Bound in an elegant recent half green morocco, banded and gilt – retaining the original cloth spine and upper panel (by Burn) at rear (the Carter “C” unpriced variant, although Carter makes a case of probability not certainty for the ordering of the variants); contrasting label (erroneously lettered “The Golden Treasures”); marbled sides; some occasional light spotting, but overall a very good copy. Contemporary (1862) pencilled ownership inscription of Marion Campbell of Edinburgh. The tickets of both Burn and the Edinburgh bookseller William Pattison Kennedy (1804?-1877) neatly reinserted.

£400

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London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, (1938). First edition : the first issue, printed on slightly thicker stock and in the primary binding of yellow cloth. An engaging anthology – E. C. Bentley, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and many more – compiled and edited by Denys Kilham Roberts. Illustrated with some arresting images by Victor Reinganum.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xx),(260)pp. Original yellow cloth, blocked and lettered in dark red; some very faint spotting to covers and edges, but otherwise a very good and bright copy in the yellow, brown and black Reinganum jacket – a little sunned, lightly rubbed and with a few slight nicks.

£40

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London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, (1938). First edition : the second issue, printed on thinner stock and in the secondary binding of grey cloth. An engaging anthology – E. C. Bentley, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and many more – compiled and edited by Denys Kilham Roberts. Illustrated with some arresting images by Victor Reinganum.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xx),(260)pp. Original grey cloth, blocked and lettered in dark red; some very faint spotting to covers and edges, but otherwise a very good and bright copy in the yellow, brown and black Reinganum jacket – price-clipped, a little chipped at head, and with some minor repairs and reinforcement.

£20

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London : Frank Cass & Co., (1970). A facsimile reprint of the complete run of all ten issues of the influential quarterly originally published between 1917 and 1920. With contributions from Richard Aldington, T. S. Eliot, Ronald Firbank, Stephen Hudson, Ford Madox Hueffer, Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, Katherine Mansfield, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Herbert Read, Dorothy M. Richardson, Isaac Rosenberg, Frank Rutter, Siegfried Sassoon, Walter Sickert, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, etc. – as well as illustrations by H. Gaudier-Brzeska, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, Nina Hamnett, E. McKnight Kauffer, Wyndham Lewis, John Nash, Paul Nash, C. R. W. Nevinson, Lucien Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Edward Wadsworth, and others. Frank Cass Library of English Little Magazines No. 16, edited by B. C. Bloomfield.
Two volumes. Crown 4to (26cm). Irregular pagination. Illustrations, many full-page. Original cloth; slight marking to foot of boards and light fading to fore-edges, but otherwise very good.

£50

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London : Christopher Sandford at the Golden Cockerel Press, 1946. First edition : one of 750 numbered copies. A rousing anthology of verse and prose – from Shakespeare to Churchill, from the well-known to the obscure – extolling the spirit of Britain at war, Britain at sea, and Britain in the air. Over sixty pieces, including both Wellington and Thackeray on Waterloo, Instructions to Captain Cook, Nelson’s Prayer before Trafalgar, etc. Illustrated with wood-engravings (made on active service) by John O’Connor (1913-2004), and with an introduction by Dorothy Rutter (1892-1961).
Crown 8vo (20cm). [iv],150,[vi]pp. Eleven wood-engravings. Original buckram-backed decorative boards; top edge gilt; a very good copy.

£100

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London : Poetry, 1939. The first issue of this legendary magazine, originally called simply “Poetry”, the first series of which ran until 1951. This copy signed next to their contributions by nine of the original contributors – Audrey Beecham, Dorian Cooke, Walter de la Mare, Lawrence Durrell (twice), Clifford Dyment, Philip O’Connor, Herbert Read, Edwin Smith and Stephen Spender (twice). Other contributors to a highly impressive first issue include George Barker, Gavin Ewart, John Gawsworth, J. F. Hendry, Rayner Heppenstall, Louis Macneice, Nicholas Moore, Keidrych Rhys, Tambimuttu himself, Dylan Thomas and Laurence Whistler.
Crown 4to (25cm). [32]pp. Photograph by Edwin Smith. Three wood engravings by Diana Gardner. Original stapled wrappers, with a design in red and black by Hector Whistler; some mild spotting, mainly to wrappers; just a hint of wear and a touch of rusting to staples, but overall a very good copy of a highly evocative survival.

£250

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