C.S. Lewis | Dymer, 1926, first US edition, original dust-jacket

Clive Hamilton [alias C.S. Lewis]

Dymer. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1926

FIRST US EDITION, 8vo, original papered cloth, dust-jacket on watermarked paper, in bespoke blue morocco clamshell box, light damp-staining to boards, sunned mildly at top and bottom edges of upper cover, light wear to top and bottom edges of boards, dust-jacket lightly sunned to upper cover, wear to joints, worn at head and foot of spine with some loss of paper, minor damp-staining to inner spine, some very small holes and tears

Edwin W. Brown notes that "the first American edition of Dymer is even rarer than the first British edition..." (see Edwin W. Brown, In Pursuit of C.S. Lewis, Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2006, p.18)

This enormously rare narrative poem, penned by C.S. Lewis under his alias Clive Hamilton, was the second published work by the author. He began working on it when he was seventeen years old, and finished it shortly after graduating from Oxford. It follows the tradition of epic poetry set by Homer, Spenser, Milton and Wordsworth, and is set in a futuristic totalitarian state. The protagonist, Dymer, escapes from the chains of civilisation and sets forth into the wilderness to find true freedom.

In the preface to the 1950 edition, C.S. Lewis remarks, "At its original appearance in 1926, Dymer, like many better books, found some good reviews and almost no readers."

LITERATURE: Hooper A2