MANLEY-HOPKINS, Gerard; Robert BRIDGES [Ed.] ~ Poems

SECOND EDITION. Humphrey Milford, London: 1930

8vo., navy blue cloth lettered in gilt to upper board and spine; together in the seldom-found printed dustwrapper (unclipped, 7s. 6d. net); outer edges untrimmed; THE BOOK a little pushed at corners and spine; some minor discolouration to tips; faintly spotted and offset to endleaves; light spotting to upper edge, very good otherwise; THE WRAPPER toned to panels and particularly so along spine, with some splash marks, creasing and nicks to edges, and some larger chipping to spine ends and ends of folds, with a little loss to lettering. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. Second edition, containing an appendix of additional poems, and a Critical Introduction by Charles Williams. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was relatively unknown throughout his lifetime. Born in Essex to a strongly religious family, his father, also a poet, published a number of collections including 'A Philosopher's Stone and Other Poems' (1843) and 'Pietas Metrica' (1849). Manley-Hopkins wrote his first poem, 'The Escorial' in 1860, after studying the works of Keats. It was while he was enrolled at Oxford that he formed a lifelong friendship with the poet Robert Bridges, the later poet laureate. Hopkins wrote poetry throughout his lifetime, though burned much of his output and ceased writing for long periods of time. After his death from typhoid fever in 1889 at the age of 44, it was only through the efforts of Bridges that his poetry was published. Bridges was responsible for circulating the poems to a wider audience, and in 1918 the first edition of these collected works was published. This example constitutes the second, expanded edition by Charles Williams, who writes that it was with the printer when Bridges' death took place. "This edition", Williams writes, "becomes a memory not only of Gerard Hopkins but also of the poet, his friend, to whom all readers of either owe so great a devotion". It not only includes Hopkins' early output, and his unfinished poems and fragments, but also all of the verses for which he is best known today, including 'Binsey Poplars', 'Pied Beauty' and 'The Windhover'. Very scarce in the dustwrapper.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good
JACKET: Good