Beschreibung:

THE ALBUM AMICORUM POETICORUM OR THE 'PERSONAL ANTHOLOGY' OF ERIC WALTER WHITE CBE (1905- 1985), first Literature Director of the Arts Council, music critic and writer, and poet, containing 60 autograph poems by many of the leading poets of the time, some with accompanying letters from them loosely interleaved, a few of the poems composed impromptu specifically for White, inscribed and signed by him as a title-page 'A Personal Anthology Eric Walter White', loose list of contents by White, c. 80 pages, plus loose insertions, deckle edges, half red morocco, quarto (including a second volume containing two typed poems by Ken [Smith?], and autograph poems by Brian Patten (2), Harry Fainlight and a prose poem by J. Jeffray Jones, and a photograph of Eric White with Ted Hughes and his bull [Sexton]), compiled 1962-1975 ELIOT, T.S.: Autograph manuscript of his poem 'Usk', signed ('T.S. Eliot'), 8 lines, 1 page, quarto, with an accompanying letter from his secretary M.I. Drage returning the book, dated 4 August 1964 Do not suddenly break the branch or Hope to find The White Hart behind the white wall. Glance aside, not for lance, do not spell Old enchantments. Let them sleep... LARKIN, PHILIP: Autograph manuscript of his poem 'Modesties', signed ('Philip'), 12 lines in three four-line stanzas, with an accompanying autograph letter signed ('Philip'), asking if White intended to sell the album to Texas and commenting 'The poem may go some way towards explaining my feeling that, despite your promise of a good time I would sooner not appear at Stratford', 2 pages, octavo, 9 January 1963; with a note by White that 'The Larkin poem was written on 13 May 1949' Words as plain as hen-birds wings Do not lie, Do not over-broider things - Are too shy... AUDEN, W.H.: Autograph manuscript of his poem 'On the Circuit', signed ('W.H. Auden'), 64 lines in sixteen four-line stanzas, 2 pages, quarto, note by White dating the entry 12 May 1964 Among pelagian travellers, Lost on their lewd conceited way I Massachusetts, Michigan, Miami or L.A.... HUGHES, TED: Autograph manuscript of his well-known poem 'Full Moon and Little Frieda', signed ('Ted Hughes'), 12 lines, 1 page, quarto, not dated A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket And you listening... "Moon!" you cry suddenly, "Moon! Moon!" The moon has stepped back, like an artist gazing amazed at a work That points at him amazed. Andrew Motion described the effect of this poem on him (one of his favourites of Ted's) in his essay in The Epic Poise: A Celebration of Ted Hughes, 1999: '...it's the intimacy of the thing I especially love, I also admire the big reach it manages so modestly...by stepping back "like an artist". Suddenly the poem goes beyond its own geography...it makes us think about the relationship between art and artist and audience...' HEANEY, SEAMUS: Autograph manuscript of his autobiographical poem 'Personal Helicon', signed and dated ('20th March 1969. Seamus Heaney'), 20 lines in five four-line stanzas, 1 page, quarto, 20 March 1969 As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top. I savoured the rich crash when a bucket Plummeted down at the end of a rope. So deep you saw no reflection in it... LOWELL, ROBERT: Autograph manuscript of his poem 'Inauguration Day January 1963', signed ('Robert Lowell'), 14 lines, 1 page, quarto, dated 19 July 1963 The snow had buried Stuyvesant The subways drummed the vaults, I heard the El's green girders charge on Third, Manhattan's truss of adamant, that groaned in ermine, slummed on want... RAINE, KATHLEEN: Autograph manuscript of her poem beginning 'See, the clear sky is threaded with a thousand rays...', signed ('Kathleen Raine'), 24 lines, in stanzas of varying length, 1 page, quarto, not dated See, the clear sky is threaded with a thousand rays, The b