Poems First Edition - Herman Melville - Bauman Rare Books

Poems

Herman MELVILLE | T.E. LAWRENCE

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Poems

T.E. LAWRENCE’S COPY OF THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF MELVILLE’S POEMS

(LAWRENCE, T.E.) MELVILLE, Herman. Poems. Containing Battle-Pieces, John Marr and Other Sailors, Timoleon and Miscellaneous Poems. London: Constable, 1924. Large octavo, original blue cloth, top edge gilt, uncut. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.

First collected edition of Melville’s poetry, one of only 750 copies printed. T.E. Lawrence’s copy, with his Clouds Hill bookplate and listed among the inventory of books at Clouds Hill, “in the possession of T. E. Lawrence at the close of his life” (T.E. Lawrence By His Friends, 448).

After an undervalued career as a novelist, Melville turned his literary skills to poetry, writing Battle-Pieces, a volume that was inspired by the events of the Civil War. Written primarily after the fall of Richmond and published shortly thereafter, the poems were poorly received by readers who were anxious to put the events of the war behind them; fewer than 500 copies of the work were sold. Melville followed Battle-Pieces with John Marr in 1888 and Timoleon in 1891, both of which were privately financed and published in small editions. Despite the limited success of Melville’s poetry during his lifetime, a renewed critical interest in Melville during the 20th-century has led many to find a new appreciation for his accomplishments as a poet. The following pieces collected here are first appearances in book form: “Author’s Note,” “Miscellaneous Poems,” “At the Hostelry.” BAL 13683. This was issued as Volume 16 of the Standard Edition of The Works of Herman Melville, and Lawrence also owned the first 12 volumes of the edition, as well as separate editions of both Moby-Dick and Israel Potter. Clearly, Lawrence drew literary inspiration from Melville, as he once remarked to Edward Garnett in reference to the forthcoming Seven Pillars of Wisdom: “I collected a shelf of titanic books, those distinguished by greatness of spirit. Karamazov, Zarathustra and Moby-Dick. Well, my ambition was to make an English fourth.”

Interior fine, with front free endpaper skillfully reinforced at gutter, light wear to extremities and minor soiling to near-fine original cloth. A lovely copy with an important association.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
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