The Year’s At The Spring : An Anthology of Recent Poetry

The First UK Printing published by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London in 1920. Large 8vo., original light brown publisher's cloth lettered in black to upper cover and spine with red decorative devices; together in the scarce pictorial wrapper featuring floral borders, and a floating flower fairy to the upper panel; with a colourful frontis and a further 23 pages of plates along with numerous black and white devices, vignettes, and head/tail pieces throughout ; The BOOK is in Very Good++ or better condition with slight pushing at the spine tips; The occasional spotting and very light mottling to the page edges but for the most part a clean, bright copy. The plates remain clean. The WRAPPER, seldom found, is complete and in Very Good++ condition with some toning to the folds and the spine : some creasing to the edges and a little loss to the spine ends and corners: some light rubbing along the spine, with a couple of short closed tears, the longest 3cm in length to the rear flap fold. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK trade edition (Steenson A3b) with the wrapper matching the description for second state (Steenson A3c), with no 'Harrap' logo to the foot of the spine. Some of the included illustrations had already appeared in other publications, including the 'To the Coming of the Spring' (p. 103), which was used as the cover image for 'The Treasury of Verse' by M. G. Edgar and E. Chilman, also published by Harrap. The black and white plate for 'A Ballad of the Captains' (p.47) was also used as a frontis in the Harrap Library edition of 'The Lure of the Sea'. A wonderful collection of verses from poets of the day, which include among them contributions from Hilaire Belloc, Rupert Brooke, G. K. Chesterton, Walter de la Mare, Alice Meynell and Thomas Hardy, wonderfully accompanied by a series of charismatic plates by the illustrator Harry Clarke. The compilation represented one of his earlier publications, preceded only by The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen in 1916 and Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination in 1919, also both published by Harrap. It was the reissue of Poe's tales in 1923 which cemented Clarke's reputation as a book illustrator during what is known today as 'the golden age of gift-book illustration' in the first quarter of the twentieth century. This publication directly followed. Scarce to find with a wrapper in any condition. Collectible. More images available on request. Ashton Rare Books welcomes direct contact.