Signed by the Poet
ELIOT, T.S. The Waste Land. London: Faber and Faber. 1961.
Small folio. Bound by the publisher in vellum-backed marbled boards, ruled in gilt and lettered in gilt to spine, upper edge gilt, else untrimmed, housed in the original matching slipcase (marbled paper-covered boards); pp. 51, [3]; a couple of very small spots to the gutters, slipcase rubbed at edges and expertly reinforced, else fine.
Limited edition, printed in Dante type by Giovanni Mardersteig on the hand-press of the Officina Bodoni in Verona, this copy no. 65 of just 300 numbered copies printed on Fratelli Magnani hand-made paper and signed by the poet.
In 1921, having taken time off from his job at Lloyds Bank for what would now be called depression, Eliot spent three weeks in Margate, on the South-East coast of England, where he wrote much of the poem sitting in Nayland Rock shelter on the promenade. The poem’s expression of despair, and powerful vision of urban alienation, spoke to a generation of disillusioned post-war readers, some critics hailing it as a masterpiece, others denouncing it for its allusiveness (William Carlos Williams complained in his autobiography that it “returned us to the classroom”). The poem remains one of the most influential (and greatest) of the twentieth century.
Gallup A6d.
#2120335