[SOLD] Poems – Rupert Brooke – 1915

The first collection of verse by English poet Rupert Brooke, best-known for his idealistic sonnets from the First World War.

This is the first edition, eighth printing, published in October 1915 by Sidgwick and Jackson.

Hardback, plain black cloth boards. Bumping and creasing to corners and top/bottom of spine, but overall in good condition. Neat previous owner’s inscription to front endpaper. Tanning to front/back endpapers but otherwise pages clean and bright.

“Rupert Brooke established his initial public reputation as a poet as a result of the publication of Poems, 1911. He finalised this in a burst of energy at the end of 1911, at the same time as he was writing his fellowship dissertation for King’s College, Cambridge.

Poems, 1911, was thought by critics at the time to reveal two of Brooke’s strongest character traits: his breadth of interest, and his daring lack of taste. In his review in The Morning Post, Brooke’s friend the poet Edward Thomas wrote:

“He is full of revolt, self-contempt, and yet arrogance too. he reveals chiefly what he desires to be and to be thought. Now and then he gives himself away, as when , in three poems close together, he speaks of the scent of warm clover. Copies chould be bought by everyone over forty who has never been under forty. It will be a revelation. Also if they live yet a little longer they may see Mr Rupert Brooke a poet. He will not be a little one.”