". . . POETRY MAY HAVE A DIFFERENT TASK IN THE FUTURE FROM WHAT IT HAS HAD IN THE PAST": INSCRIBED AND SIGNED FIRST EDITION OF T.S. ELIOT'S ON POETRY AND POETS, 1957
ELIOT, T.S. On Poetry and Poets. London: Faber and Faber, (1957). Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket, custom protective dust jacket.
First edition of this collection of Eliot's essays on the subject most dear to his heart, inscribed and signed by the poet in the year of publication, "To M— C— with cordial good wishes from T.S. Eliot. 13.ix.57."
"With one exception all the essays included in this book are subsequent to those included in my Selected Essays [1932]. Most of them were written within the last sixteen years… This book, as the title indicates, is limited to essays concerned with poets or with poetry… Of the sixteen essays which make up the present book, ten were originally addressed directly to audiences; an eleventh essay, that on Virgil, was a broadcast talk… Each item is substantially the same as on the date of its delivery or first publication" (Preface). Includes "The Social Function of Poetry" (1945), "The Music of Poetry" (1942), "What Is a Classic?" (1944), "The Three Voices of Poetry" (1953), among other addresses and essays on poetry, as well as pieces on Virgil, Milton, Johnson, Byron, Goethe, Kipling and Yeats. Gallup A69a.
Fine condition.