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Robert Frost ? Biblical Drama ? First Printing A Masque of Mercy First Printing ? Henry Holt and Company ? New York ? 1947 Robert Frost?s A Masque of Mercy, published by Henry Holt in 1947, is the companion piece to his earlier A Masque of Reason. Together, the two works show Frost moving beyond the lyric and pastoral forms for which he was best known, into a dramatic blank verse shaped by biblical argument, theological irony, and New England plain speech. The play is set in a metropolitan bookstore late at night. Its central figure is Jonah, brought into a modern conversation about justice, mercy, God, and man. The dust jacket describes the work as Frost?s attempt to ask whether there is an essential contradiction between trust in a just God and in a merciful one. This is not the Frost of autumn roads and snow-filled woods, but Frost in his sharper, more philosophical register. The book belongs to the later period in which he tested how far his voice could travel: from rural New England into scripture, theatre, moral debate, and modern city life. This copy is the stated first printing, in the original dust jacket retaining the $2.50 price. The jacket also advertises A Masque of Reason on the rear panel, explicitly placing the two works in conversation. Bibliographic Details Robert Frost. A Masque of Mercy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947. First printing. Original blue cloth hardcover with original dust jacket. 39 pp. Condition Very good copy, with light toning to pages and minor age wear. Original unclipped dust jacket, lightly worn, with some toning and minor wear at extremities. A first printing of one of Frost?s late dramatic works: a compact, unusual, and theologically charged book from a poet often remembered too narrowly as merely pastoral. Very good copy, with light toning to pages and minor age wear.Original unclipped dust jacket,
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