North of Boston Robert Frost Other Poetry

This is the elusive first edition, first issue, first binding state ("Binding A") of Frost's second published book. Condition is very good plus. The green cloth binding is square, tight, and clean with no color shift between the covers and spine and bright gilt print. We note only minor shelf wear to the spine ends, joints, and corners. Three corners remain sharp, only the upper rear corner very slightly bruised. The contents are inevitably age-toned, but only mildly so. We find no soiling or spotting and the sole previous ownership mark is contemporary - an inked initial and surname with the date "1915" beside and in the same hand. The untrimmed fore and bottom edges are clean apart from toning, the top edges show a bit of shelf dust. The lovely, first issue binding is protected beneath a clear, removable mylar cover.Frost and his family moved to Little Iddens in early April, 1914, occupying a two-story cottage with a vegetable garden and orchards of apple, plum, and pear. Mid-May 1914 saw Frost s second published book, North of Boston, which bolstered his newly minted literary reputation and precipitated his return to the United States. North of Boston opens with the famous poems "The Pasture" and "Mending Wall" and was swiftly hailed by important reviews. Complicating publication history, the 1,000 sets of first edition sheets saw six different binding variants over an eight-year period, due both to transfer of sheets for an American edition and to bankruptcy of the original publisher and resulting sale of remaining first edition sheets. (See Crane, A3, pp.14-15)"Approximately 350 copies were bound up in coarse green cloth and sold by the firm of David Nutt in 1914." These 350 were the only copies bound and sold before the First World War began and before Frost returned to America. These "Binding A" copies are distinguished by the binding dimensions and material (a coarse, olive-green cloth), by the presence of a blind rule border at both the horizontal and vertical edges of the front cover, and by the lack of a rubber stamped "Printed in Great Britain" on the title page verso. This particular copy's sole previous ownership mark dated "1915" definitively settles the issue; the second and final English binding of first printing sheets did not occur until 1917.Iconic American poet Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) was the quintessential poetic voice of New England. Ironically, Frost was born in San Francisco and it was a 1912 move to England with his wife and children "the place to be poor and to write poems" that catalyzed his recognition. A Boy s Will was completed in England, published by David Nutt in 1913. A convocation of critical recognition, introduction to other writers, and creative energy supported the 1914 English publication of Frost s second book, North of Boston, 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 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." (ANB) Frost eventually won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and spent his final decade and a half 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).Reference: Crane A3 First edition, first issue, first binding state.