Gitanjali (Song Offerings). A collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali. With an introduction by W. B. Yeats. PETHICK-LAWRENCE, Emmeline (her copy); TAGORE, Rabindra Nath.

First edition in English, inscribed on the front free endpaper in the year of publication to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence by Henry W. Nevinson, both of whom knew Tagore and admired his poetry and politics, especially his stance on women's suffrage. Tagore wrote of Nevinson that "soul was alive in [a] country which had produced such a man" (Selected Letters, pp. 516-7). Nevinson (1856-1941), a journalist and campaigner, first met Tagore during the early stages of this book's development. He and Tagore were present when Yeats gave a reading from the manuscript; Nevinson wrote of "short glimpses of spiritual moods, many in the spirit of the Imitation, full of surrender of self & adoration of God" (quoted in Yeats Annual no. 7, pp. 116). Both Nevinson and Pethick-Lawrence (1867-1954) shared a distaste of the WSPU's new militancy, and helped found the United Suffragists movement for disillusioned campaigners. Pethick-Lawrence visited Tagore in 1926, writing in her autobiography that "it was a great privilege to meet the poet. at his home in Santiniketan, to hear him recite one of his songs, of which he gave us a translation" (My Part in a Changing World, p. 338). Votes for Women published an approving review of Tagore's play Chitra, judging that he had "shown us the very heart of a modern woman, put his finger so surely on the pulse of what is now called the 'Woman's Movement'". All three - Tagore, Nevinson, and Pethick-Lawrence - had ties to the Kibbo Kift utopian movement. Tagore was on the advisory committee, and Nevinson's wife and Pethick-Lawrence were active Kinswomen. Tagore's seminal collection of poems was first published in Bengali in 1910. This is one of 750 copies of the English translation, of which just 250 were for sale. Wade 263. "'Chitra' The Heart of the Woman's Movement", Votes for Women, 15 May 1914; Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, eds, Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore, 1997. Octavo. Portrait frontispiece with tissue guard. Title page and initial letters printed in red. Original white cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, edges untrimmed. Light bumping, rubbing, and damp staining, toning to spine, infrequent minor foxing and toning to contents, damp stain to upper outer corner of frontispiece: a very good copy.