INSCRIBED BY IMPORTANT SCOTS POET HUGH MACDIARMID

MACDIARMID, Hugh. To Circumjack Cencrastus, or the Curly Snake. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1930. Octavo, original navy cloth gilt, original dust jacket. $750.

First edition, inscribed by the poet, “Signed for Joe Spears with warmest regards and best wishes from Hugh MacDiarmid.”

“From 1920 onwards a movement was started towards the revival of Scots as a literary medium. At first [poet Christopher Murray] Grieve resisted this, believing it to be a ‘backwater’, but he finally started to experiment with it, assuming the pen name of Hugh MacDiarmid. He employed a literary Scots based largely on the speech of his native countryside, but also using and reviving words from the Scots poets and prose writers of the past” (DNB). In time, he was “acknowledged in Scotland as crucial to Scottish poetry, culture and politics” (Hamilton, 322). “Ideological concerns became dominant in his poetry with To Circumjack Cencrastus” (Stringer, 413).

Book about-fine. Dust jacket very good with light wear and shallow chipping. Overall an extremely good copy, desirable inscribed by the poet. Scarce.