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Dylan Thomas. 18 Poems. London: The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, [1934]....
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Description
An important association copy, inscribed to the publisher of this, his first book
Dylan Thomas. 18 Poems. London: The Sunday Referee
and The Parton Bookshop, [1934].8vo. Original black cloth, flat back, gilt-lettered on spine; publisher's printed dust jacket; cloth chemise and folding case.
FIRST EDITION OF THOMAS'S FIRST BOOK, FIRST ISSUE. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY THOMAS TO HIS PUBLISHER VICTOR NEUBERG, on the front free endpaper: "From Dylan / to / Victor, / with the utmost thanks."
AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY, inscribed to his publisher Victor Neuberg, Poetry Editor of the Sunday Referee. Thomas had barely turned twenty when the book appeared and had just moved to London the previous month. 18 Poems was published as a consequence of Thomas being selected as the prize winner for the "Poet's Corner" competition run by ex-Aleister Crowley intimate Victor Neuberg in the Sunday Referee. Along with his companion and assistant, Runia MacLeod Tharp, in 1933 and 1934 they cultivated Thomas as one of the chief lights of their literary coterie in a house they shared in St. John's Wood. In 1935, Neuberg and Tharp inaugurated Comment, a poetry weekly, in which they published some of Thomas' work. Thomas brought them manuscripts of what would become his second book, and Tharp was at least partially responsible for the manuscripts being seen by Richard Church of J.M. Dent who published 25 Poems in 1936. At the time of Neuberg's death in 1940, Thomas commented that he had not heard about Tharp and Neuberg in years, but he sent her a letter of condolence.
This first issue of about 250 copies has a flat back and collates as in Rolph. Five hundred sets of sheets were printed: half were bound up in December 1934, with a flat spine as above; the remaining 250 copies were bound in February 1936 with a round-back spine and constitute the second issue.
Thomas's first collection contains some of his most memorable poems: "I see the boys of summer in their ruin", "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower", "If I were tickled by the rub of love", and "Especially when the October wind." Cyril Connolly comments: "Thomas's first poems, which shattered for those who discovered them the whole revolutionary optimism of the thirties" (The Modern Movement).
Condition: Some very minor blistering to cloth; front hinge tender; some occasional pale spotting (mostly to endpapers and prelims). Dust jacket with spine panel a little toned and with chip at head; some other chipping and wear at edges; soiled; some staining on verso from black dye transfer from cloth binding.
References: Connolly, The Modern Movement, 78a; Hayward 343; Rolph B1(a).
Provenance: Victor Neuberg (presentation inscription). From the William A. Strutz Library.
View all of [The William A. Strutz Library ]
Auction Info
2024 June 27 Important English and American Literature: The William A. Strutz Library, Part I, Rare Books Signature® Auction #6295 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
June, 2024
27th
Thursday
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