In defence of democracy
MacDIARMID, Hugh. The Battle Continues. Edinburgh: Castle Wynd Printers Limited. 1957.
8vo. Red publisher's boards, ruled in blind to upper board, and gilt along spine; in the striking grey dust jacket with single colour lino cut by Zeljiko Kujundzic; pp. [viii], 107, [1]; essentially fine, the jacket slightly creased and nicked at upper edge; author's signature to front free endpaper.
First edition, signed by the author.
Ian Hamilton wrote that Hugh Macdiarmid "makes his own rules, contemns categories, cracks open water-tight compartments, bestraddles disciplines, scorns social, cultural, and academic cliques and claques, and affirms … that it is not failure but low aim that is criminal".
The Battle Continues is Macdiarmid's resolute stand against Fascism under General Franco, following the publication of a poem on the Spanish Civil War by South African poet Roy Campbell, a staunch opponent of the democratic Left. The poem was a direct response to Campbell's "Flowering Rifle", serving as a rebuke that remained unpublished at the time, aside from a limited number of quarterlies. The Battle Continues now stands as a revolutionary rallying cry in defence of democracy everywhere.
#2120213