1917 The Dream Splendid

Description

Author's Presentation Copy, First Edition, Original Binding, Publishers' Original Binding, Scarce, Signed

In the publisher's original paper yapp binding. First edition. Signed and inscribed by the author to the half-title, "To J. E. H. from john Langdon-Davies, In The Sure Faith that the contents will be most inacceptible to him as a critic not so him as a friend. R. I. P." With the number 5 written in the author's hand to the top corner of the same. Although its colophon date is given in Roman numerals as 1914 (MCMXIV), the book was published in 1917 by The Pelican Press, with printing overseen by Francis Meynell, later a founder of the Nonesuch Press. The opening prose-poem, “Snowdrops, Oxford,” is particularly striking and often singled out for its delicate imagery and emotional clarity. An early publication by the journalist, war correspondent and humanitarian John Langdon-Davies (1897–1971), written on the eve of Langdon-Davies’s imprisonment for conscientious objection, which cost him his scholarship and ultimately forced him to abandon his Oxford studies.