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FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. 8vo, pp. 71, [1 blank], title page printed in orange and black, first initial orange, decorative floral tailpieces. Publisher's original grey stiff card wrappers, front wrapper lettered and framed in gilt. Pushing to extremities, gentle edgewear. Affectionately inscribed by Kermode in black ink to title page: "Cherrill Kermode, with much love from J. K. Oct 1907," manuscript poem 'Inasmuch' inscribed in black ink on verso of half-title, related offsetting. Spotting and browning throughout, offsetting from label (now removed) to half-title, early pages gaping at threads, spine cracked at pp 8-9 and holding by two threads, otherwise, binding firm. Else, clean. Good-only. Rare in both the trade and British and Irish research institutions: JiscLHD locates only two copies of the first edition (BL & UoKent). A splendid familial presentation copy of the rare first edition of Manx revival poet Josephine Kermode's first poetry collection (and first outing under her nom de plume), inscribed, in the publication year, to her sister C M 'Cherill' Kermode and featuring a further poem 'Inasmuch' (not collected here) inscribed in the poet's hand. Cushag the Manx Gaelic for ragwort, the official flower of the Isle of Man was the familial nickname and nom de plume of the Ramsey-born poet and playwright Josephine Kermode (1852-1937). The daughter of a peripatetic antiquarian and clergyman and his second wife, Kermode's work is informed by Manx folklore, which, along with the Manx activist Sophia Morrison, she also collected. From 1908, when the second edition of Poems was issued, Kermode lived with her brother, P. M. C. Kermode, an historian famed for deciphering the Celtic-Norse crosses of the Island and later appointed the first Curator of the Manx Museum. Following her brother's death in 1932, the poet moved to Bournemouth with her sister, Caroline Matilda Cherill Kermode (c. 1861-1946), also known as Cherry. An important figure in the Manx literary revival, following in the wake of her fellow poet T. E. Brown and the novelist Hall Caine, Kermode's poems and plays proved popular on the Island: three editions of Poems by "Cushag" had appeared by 1911. Celebrated for her humour and lyricism, as well as her use of traditional Manx themes and dialect, her work was "laced with words and phrases in Manx Gaelic [… and…] was seen as a record in verse of a distillation of the spirit and beliefs of the Manx crofters in their scattered hamlets and lonely farmhouses". This collection was also reviewed in English language publications, with the Manchester Guardian critic offering a challenge to readers: "The dialect verse, in which most of the poems are written, presents an almost insuperable obstacle to English readers, but if this difficulty can be surmounted, there is in the volume ample reward for the trouble involved".
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