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This remarkable prize is a magnificent first edition, first printing, first binding state of Robert Frost s first published book. Condition of the book is, almost implausibly, better than near fine. The publisher s bronzed brown pebbled cloth is square, tight, immaculately clean, and beautifully bright. If not for the slightest, barely discernible, uniform lightening of the spine, we would grade this copy as truly fine. We note only a touch shelf wear to the spine heel and lower corners. The contents are simply immaculate - clean, bright, and tight with a crisp, unread feel. The title page signature remains uncut. We find no spotting, no soiling, no previous ownership marks, and no apparent age-toning. The compellingly lovely binding is protected beneath a clear, removable, mylar cover.A Boy s Will was first published in England in 1913. The publication history is complicated by the fact that the reported 1,000 first edition sheets saw two issues in four variant bindings. These many iterations were bound and sold over a period of three decades, owing in part to the bankruptcy of the original publisher (Nutt) and sale of remaining first edition sheets during the subsequent liquidation. It is estimated that "no more than 350 copies" and plausibly as few as 284 were issued thus, in the publisher s original shiny bronzed brown pebbled cloth "used to bind the first books that appeared." Known to Frost bibliographers and collectors as "binding A", these copies "were bound by the Leighton-Straker Bookbinding Co. before 1 April 1913." Iconic American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), the quintessential poetic voice of New England, was actually born in San Francisco and first published in England. When Frost was eleven, his newly widowed mother moved east to New Hampshire. There Frost swiftly found his poetic voice, infused by New England scenes and sensibilities. Promising as both a student and writer, Frost nonetheless dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard, supporting himself and a young family by teaching and farming. Ironically, a 1912 move to England with his wife and children "the place to be poor and to write poems" catalyzed Frost s recognition as a noteworthy American poet. The manuscript of A Boy s Will was completed in England and published by David Nutt in April 1913. "Yeats pronounced the poetry "the best written in America for some time" and Frost received "two extraordinary tributes in the Nation and the Chicago Dial and a superb review in the Academy."" A convocation of critical recognition, introduction to other writers, and creative energy supported the English publication of Frost s second book, North of Boston, in 1914, after which "Frost s reputation as a leading poet had been firmly established in England, and Henry Holt of New York had agreed to publish his books in America." Accolades met Frost s return to America at the end of 1914. By 1917 a move to Amherst "launched him on the twofold career he would lead for the rest of his life: teaching whatever "subjects" he pleased at a congenial college… and "barding around," his term for "saying" poems in a conversational performance." (ANB) In 1924 he won the first of an eventual four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry (1931, 1937, and 1943). Frost spent his final decades as "the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century" with a host of academic and civic honors to his credit. Two years before his death he became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961). Reference: Crane A2; ANB.
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