MACNEICE, Louis. Autumn Journal.

MACNEICE, Louis. Autumn Journal. London: Faber and Faber. 1939.

8vo. Original terracotta cloth, lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust-jacket, priced 6s. net to front flap; pp. 96; small abrasion to the cloth at the foot of the spine, affecting the upper edge of the final ‘F’ in the gilt ‘F[aber] & F[aber]’, small area of abrasion to foot of jacket spine, minor loss to spine tips, light edgewear and marking along the upper edge of rear panel; a near-fine copy in a very good jacket.

First edition, first impression, a notably bright copy of MacNeice’s great autobiographical poem written in the months leading up to the outbreak of war.

Written between August and December 1938, Autumn Journal records the author’s state of mind as war seemed increasingly inevitable. ‘On the one hand it comprises events, places seen, subjects thought about, even nightmares; on the other hand it has a dramatic aspect, as the different types of person combined in the author are each given their opportunity to speak’ (jacket). ‘It is’, MacNeice wrote to T. S. Eliot while preparing the work for publication, ‘my best work to date; […] both a panorama and a confession of faith.’ In print ever since, it remains, alongside Eliot’s Four Quartets, one of the great poetic works of the period. Published in May 1939 in an edition of 5,975 copies.

Armitage A12a.

SKU: 2125158