Poems

BROOKE, Rupert

INSCRIBED BY RUPERT BROOKE TO FELLOW DYMOCK POET

BROOKE, Rupert Poems

Sidgwick & Jackson, 1911.

First edition. Original dark blue-black cloth with paper title label on the spine. Author's presentation copy, inscribed to fellow poet W.W. Gibson, "Wilfred Gibson from Rupert Brooke 1913". Three further autograph corrections by Brooke to the text: adding the word "so" to the second line of the second verse on p.32, changing the title of the poem on p.34 from "Libido" to "Lust" and changing "Senility's greasy furtive love-making" to "senility's queasy furtive love-making" on p.35. A very good copy indeed, crisp and clean with light spotting to the prelims and tanning to spine label.

An exceptional and rare presentation copy of Brooke's first commercially published work. Gibson and Brooke met in London, and later, along with Edward Thomas and Robert Frost, moved to Dymock, where they collaborated on their own quarterly entitled 'New Numbers'.
'Poems' is the only collection published in Brooke's short lifetime, before he died one of the most famous deaths in English history on St George's Day 1915. Owing to this and to the limited print run of 500 copies, inscribed copies appear very seldom in commerce: there has been no copy at auction for 30 years, a meagre six examples in the last century 1939, 1946, 1968 (the present copy), 1972, 1988 and 1990.
The authorial corrections to the text on pages 32 and 35 appear in the second edition of 1913. Brooke's manuscript altering the title the poem 'Libido' to 'Lust' was a reversal of a change forced upon him by his publishers, who asked for the poem to be removed entirely, but eventually settled for the change of title. This title remained until 'Collected Poems' of 1918.

PROVENANCE: W. W. Gibson (1878-1962), presentation inscription from Brooke, sold July 1968 as part of the sale of Gibson's library to: John Schroder (noted Brooke collector whose Brooke papers were sold to King's College Cambridge in 2015); by descent.

Keynes 5; Schroder 8

Stock ID: 40129

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