LAWRENCE, D.H. Pansies. London: Privately printed by P. R. Stephensen, 1929.
8vo., original white wrappers printed with text in black and red; bird device to lower cover; housed in both the original glassine and cream slip-case; title page and frontis portrait printed in blue and brown; pp. [xvi], 125, [i]; internally fine, with some light foxing to covers; the glassine, as ever, toned and with some small chips to corners; the slip-case shelf worn and rubbed with splits to edges expertly reinforced.
First definitive and unexpurgated edition, No. 400 of just 500 copies signed by Lawrence. This edition was published in June 1929, following the expurgated Secker edition.
Perhaps best known as a novelist, D. H. Lawrence was also an accomplished poet, penning over 800 verses in his lifetime. Some a few a pages long, other just two lines, the title of this collection is a play on the word "pensees, anglice pansies; a handful of thoughts. Or, if you will have the other derivation of pansy, from panser, to dress or soothe a wound; these are my tender administrations to the mental and emotional wounds we suffer from"
14 poems were omitted from the first Secker edition, suppressed by Scotland Yard, including 'The Noble Englishman', with its reference to sodomy. This copy is "printed complete, following the original manuscript, according to my wish" (Lawrence). It was to be the last book of poetry to be published in Lawrence's lifetime.
Uncommon with both glassine and box intact.
#2110368