Rupert Brooke; Gwen Raverat (illus.)
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, 1919
London: Philip Lee Warner for the Medici Society
The unique, exceptional fourteenth copy on vellum from an edition of thirteen. Fully illuminated at frontispiece and all ninety initials.
2872
Octavo. x, 156pp. An immense undertaking and a brilliant book to suit the apotheosis of Rupert Brooke, whose death in 1915 made him the poetic saint of the First World...
Octavo. x, 156pp. An immense undertaking and a brilliant book to suit the apotheosis of Rupert Brooke, whose death in 1915 made him the poetic saint of the First World War. The medievalism apparent in the rampant gilt-work and hand-painting recalls pre-Renaissance, pre-Raphaelite hagiographies, here consciously adapted for a modern martyr. Some initials include figural elements, including birds and fish and even the occasional poppy. The frontispiece portrait of Brooke by Gwen Raverat captures him as he was remembered by his contemporaries: handsome, with the academic attire of his Cambridge days. He was, after all, part of the Bloomsbury circle, and Virginia Woolf grafted his military death onto the early death of her brother, Thoby, in the character Percival in The Waves. He is often listed among the first of the cohort of Britain's WWI poets, alongside Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, David Jones, and Robert Graves. This, too, represents some of Raverat's early work and the refinement of her black-line style during the 1910s before her wider recognition in the 20s and 30s. Publisher Philip Lee Warner himself died young, in 1925. He had operated the Medici Society imprint since 1908 and here, as was his wont, he had the book printed in the Riccardi Press Fount at the Chiswick Press. As printed, the limitation statement announces thirteen vellum copies, and the handwritten "fourteen" suggests that this was a presentation copy, though to whom remains unknown. Bound in full vellum with exposed vellum bands and green ties, all present, plus gilt titling to cover and spine. Silk bookmark also present and intact. Front flyleaves show only offsetting from tucked-in ties, else an astonishing, and astonishingly clean, interior. Covers likewise shining other than marks to upper right corner of rear panel (this may be a flaw in the vellum, however). A fine copy. Laid in is an auction bookmark from a long-ago sale. Tipped-in to the front cover is a bookseller's description, next to which is a pencil noting the price a previous owner paid in October 1946.


