A Boy's Will The scarcest binding variant of the first edition, one of 30 thus Robert Frost Other Poetry

This exceptionally well-preserved first edition, only printing, second issue of Frost s first published book is the scarcest identified binding variant one of just 30 thus. First published in England in 1913, the publication history of A Boy s Will is complicated by the fact that the reported 1,000 first edition sheets saw two issues in four different bindings, owing in part to the bankruptcy of the original publisher (Nutt) and sale of unbound first edition sheets to a British bookseller during the subsequent liquidation, followed in turn by further sale of remaining sheets to a U.S. bookseller, each bookseller arranging a later binding. This copy is Binding "C", one of only 100 reported copies bound in 1922 for British bookseller Simpkin Marshall, distinguished by cream linen-paper wrappers stamped in the same lettering and decoration as the original publisher s Bindings A & B (with the horizontal bar surmounting the "A" and with two eight-petaled flowers, beneath the lower of which is a single dot from which descend three, leaf-like slashes), but in black without a front cover border rule. Of these 100 Binding C copies, 70 (purchased by American bookseller Dunster House along with more than 600 sets of remaining unbound sheets, bound by Dunster House as Binding "D") were sent to America and rubber-stamped "Printed in Great Britain" on the title page verso. Just 30 copies were not so stamped, retaining a blank title page verso. This copy is one of these 30. Scarcity alone renders this copy desirable. Condition better than very good plus renders this copy truly exceptional. The original wraps binding is square, tight, and complete, with an uncreased spine. We note mild spine toning, light overall soiling, and light wear to extremities, including some faint creasing at corners. with only minor wear to extremities, mild overall soiling, and a toned spine. The contents are strikingly clean and bright, with no previous ownership marks, no spotting, no soiling, and only the slightest observed age-toning. Iconic American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), the quintessential poetic voice of New England, was actually born in San Francisco and first published in England. When Frost was eleven, his newly widowed mother moved east to Salem, New Hampshire, where Frost swiftly found his poetic voice, infused by New England scenes and sensibilities. Promising as both a student and writer, Frost nonetheless dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard, supporting himself and a young family by teaching and farming. Ironically, it was a 1912 move to England with his wife and children that finally catalyzed his recognition as a noteworthy American poet. The manuscript of A Boy s Will was completed in England and accepted for publication by David Nutt on 1 April 1913. English publication of Frost s second book, North of Boston, followed in 1914, after which "Frost s reputation as a leading poet had been firmly established in England, and Henry Holt of New York had agreed to publish his books in America." Accolades met his return to America at the end of 1914 and by 1917 a move to Amherst "launched him on the twofold career he would lead for the rest of his life: teaching whatever "subjects" he pleased at a congenial college and "barding around," his term for "saying" poems in a conversational performance." Just a decade after A Boy s Will was published, in 1924, Frost won the first of his still-unrivaled four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. Despite the fact that A Boy s Will was not published until he was nearly forty, Frost spent his final years as "the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century" with a host of academic and civic honors. Two years before his death he became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961).References: Crane A2; Tuten and Zubizarreta; ANB