Thomas, Dylan.

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Description

18 Poems. London: The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, 1934

first edition, first issue, presentation copy inscribed by the author to runia macleod tharp ("From Dylan | to | Runia. | in gratitude. | January 20, 1935") on front free endpaper, 8vo, copy as used for setting the fortune press edition in 1941 with a number of revisions within preliminaries, original black cloth lettered in gilt on spine, disbound, lacking half-title, some browning and soiling

Provenance

Runia Macleod Tharp (inscription); M.J. Tambimuttu

Literature

Connolly 78(a); Rolph B1(a)

Catalogue Note

a fine inscribed presentation copy of the poet's first book.

This copy was inscribed shortly after publication. Runia MacLeod Tharp was companion and assistant to Victor Neuberg, Poetry Editor of the Sunday Referee. Together they inaugurated the prize competition which resulted in the publication of Thomas' 18 Poems, and in 1933 and 1934 they cultivated Thomas as one of the chief lights of their literary coterie in a house they shared in St. John's Wood. In 1935 Neuberg and Tharp inaugurated Comment, a poetry weekly, in which they published some of Thomas' work. Thomas brought them manuscripts of what would become his second book, and Tharp was at least partially responsible for the manuscripts being seen by Richard Church of J.M. Dent who published 25 Poems in 1936.

At the time of Neuberg's death in 1940 Thomas commented that he had not heard about Tharp and Neuberg in years, but he sent her a letter of condolence.

At some time prior to 1941 this copy was acquired by the poet M.J. Tambimuttu who wrote to Thomas that year mentioning its loss. Thomas replied that he was "sorry some cad removed [it], but if your copy was inscribed by me to Runia - an old friend - then some cad must have removed it from her." At this point the copy's history becomes unclear.

Tambimuttu had published a book with the Fortune Press in 1941, and it is possible that R.A. Caton, the Fortune Press's notoriously unscrupulous publisher, may have "removed" it at that time. Whatever the precise history, this copy was used as setting copy text for the Fortune Press edition of 18 Poems, published in 1942. It was at that time disbound (although the original stitching remains) and the half‑title was discarded, as the Fortune Press edition would be issued without half-title. A number of revisions are present in pencil and ink, significantly revising the preliminaries, omitting Neuberg's introduction, and changing the titles in the contents to conform typographically with the first lines of the poems.

"These first poems... shattered for those who discovered them the whole revolutionary optimism of the 'thirties..." (Connolly)