About this Item
This first trade edition, first printing, of Frost s third Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection is inscribed, signed, and dated by Frost in the year of publication. Inked in three lines at the head of the title page, Frost wrote: "Robert Frost | Plymouth 1936 | For Elizabeth R. Elkins". On the facing blank half title verso, the recipient, Elizabeth Elkins, inscribed and signed the book in five lines in pencil: "To | Almira Taylor | September 1936 | from | Elizabeth R. Elkins". The only other previous ownership mark in the book is the name "Almira Brown Taylor" inked on the upper front free endpaper recto. The inscriptions and names allow us to determine the initial chain of ownership with some confidence. Frost inscribed this book for Elizabeth R. Elkins in the year of publication, so sometime on or after publication (May 1936). In September, no more than four months after Frost s own inscription, Elkins then gifted the book to Almira Brown Taylor. It would have been a fitting gift; Brown (1920-2016) was sixteen at the time. She eventually graduated with a degree in Library Science and worked at a variety of prestigious universities and secondary schools. She also apparently became a diligent collector; five scrapbooks of hers are now held by Duke University Archives & Manuscripts, four of which feature "literary figures, including authors, poets, playwrights, essayists, and biographers".Condition is very good plus in a very good dust jacket. The red cloth binding is square, clean, bright, and tight with sharp corners, no color shift between the covers and spine, and only the slightest shelf wear to the bottom edges. The contents show no spotting and only modest age-toning. The red-brown topstain retains uniform, unfaded color. We would grade this copy as near fine if not for old cello-tape transfer browning to the free endpaper corners caused by non-archival tape on an old dust jacket protector, now removed. The endpapers also show a little transfer browning from the pastedown glue. The dust jacket is highly complete, with only fractional loss to the spine ends and flap fold corners. The jacket shows mild spine toning, but is otherwise clean, and is now protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.A Further Range includes fifty-one poems and is divided into six parts. Some of Frost s best known lyrics are found herein, among them "Desert Places", "Neither Out Far Nor in Deep", and "A Leaf Treader". Although A Further Range, Frost s sixth book of poetry, went on to win the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, "it drew scathing attacks from leftist critics at the time of its publication for its conservative political cast." The political criticism polluted the literary, as politically liberal critics not only criticized the work, but "sought to diminish Frost s reputation" and cast his talent as waning. Although Frost called attention to the topicality of A Further Range "It has got a good deal more of the times in it than anything I ever wrote before" Frost was nonetheless "troubled and angered by these attacks." Perhaps "the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century" Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) eventually won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (1924, 1931, 1937 for this volume, and 1943) and became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961). Reference: Crane A21.1, Tuten and Zubizareta; ANB; Duke University; Legacy Obituaries.
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