Fine Literature & Modern Firsts

FROST, Robert (1874–1963). North of Boston. London: David Nutt, [1914]. 8vo. Original publisher’s gilt–lettered olive-green buckram; folding chemise; morocco–backed slipcase. Provenance: Sold at Christie’s 6 October 1994, lot 84. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, Binding A (one of 350 copies), of Frost’s second book, preceding the American edition. The work was well received having been reviewed and heralded by Ezra Pound and W.B. Yeats, firmly establishing his literary reputation both at home and across the Atlantic. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY FROST “FOR GORDON CHALMERS” WITH THE 12–LINE POEM “SPRING POOLS” IN ITS ENTIRETY: “These pools that, though in forests, still reflect / The total sky almost without defect / And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver / Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone / And yet not out by any brook or river / But up by roots to bring dark foliage on / The trees that have it in their pent-up buds / To darken nature and be summer woods / Let them think twice before they use their powers / To blot out and drink up and sweep away / These flowery waters and these watery flowers / From snow that melted only yesterday.” The poem “Spring Pools” was first collected in West–Running Brook (1928). “Among Robert Frost’s special friendships was that with educator Gordon K. Chalmers, long–time President of Kenyon College, and his poet wife Roberta Swartz Chalmers” (Lathem Robert Frost 100, p. 66). Nearly all of the books inscribed by Frost to Chalmers are presentation copies and are virtually unobtainable with the last selling in the rooms in 2002. A FINE COPY. Crane A3.