INSCRIBED TO IVOR GURNEY
The Treasure Box
Privately Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1919.
First edition. Original blue hand-sewn paper wrappers. AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY inscribed to fellow poet, "Ivor Gurney from Robert Graves". Title page design and one other line drawing by Nancy Nicholson. Spine worn and neatly repaired, corners worn and lightly frayed, a very good copy.
An excellent association copy of Graves' first collection of poetry to be published after demobilisation, inscribed to fellow war poet Ivor Gurney who would also set several of Graves' poems from The Treasure Box to music.
Gurney was an English poet and composer from Gloucester who's studies at the Royal College of Music were cut short by the outbreak of war. During the war he was twice wounded in action, secondly with gas that led to the worsening of his manic depression, for which he was institutionalised in 1922. Graves met Gurney in the Gloucestershire regiment, and they fought alongside each other in the trenches during battles including the Somme. In civilian life, they mixed in the same literary circles and exchanged a sporadic correspondence, until Gurney's death from tuberculoses in 1937. These letters included discussions of their personal struggles adjusting to life after the war and the development and publication of their creative endeavours.
'Sorry that the reviewers think Graves cannot write; for he is a poet and I am not.' 23 May 1918, Gurney, Collected Letters, p. 428.
The Treasure Box is Graves' third work, privately printed in an edition of 200 copies, none of which were for sale.
Stock ID: 46555
£3,750.00
