Sitwell, Osbert ~ England Reclaimed – A Book of Eclogues ; With The E. McKnight Kauffer Wrapper

First UK Printing : Duckworth, London : 1927

The First UK Printing published by Duckworth, London in 1927. 8vo, bright orange cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt; in the McKnight Kauffer illustrated wrapper priced '7’6 net' to spine, showing a stylised figure representing a modern Green Man; The BOOK a Very Good++ copy, edges mildly sunned; endpapers slightly toned and offset; the Very Good+ WRAPPER with some inevitable fading to the spine, overall light shelf marking and some age related markings; some nicks and slight losses to fold ends and spine tips; with a couple of small closed tears to the folds. The wrapper artwork by E. McKnight Kauffer remains striking in the removable Brodart archival cover. First edition of this collection of ecologues, rustic and pastoral poems which formed the first part of a trilogy on the theme of England; the second volume was concerned with country towns, while the third dealt with cosmopolitan life in cities. The book is dedicated to the author’s sister, the writer and poet Edith Sitwell. All three of the Sitwell siblings – Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell – were poets, writers, and patrons of artists who grew up in the sprawling stately home of Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire. Osbert writes of his young sister in the introduction: “To you, sad child, upon the darkened stair, Poor flaxen foundling of the upper air…” The remainder of the poems contained after all touch on an idealised England, a remembered youth, and figures within the society which the Sitwells inhabited, including such as Mr and Mrs Hague, ‘Moping Fred’, and a whole series on the ‘Southern’s’, Wrappers by E. McKnight Kauffer are becoming increasingly collectible, especially those produced between the 1920s and 1950s. American by birth, Kauffer settled in Britain in 1914 and was primarily known for producing iconic posters for the London Underground and Shell. His abstract and symbolic, rather than figurative designs proved hugely popular with publishers, and they remain so today. Scarce with such attributes.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good++
JACKET: Very Good++