“LET US GO THEN, YOU AND I…”: EXTREMELY RARE INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION OF ELIOT’S PRUFROCK, HIS FIRST BOOK AND “THE BIRTH OF MODERN POETRY IN ENGLISH”
ELIOT, T.S. Prufrock and Other Observations. London: The Egoist Ltd., 1917. 12mo, original stiff buff paper wrappers lettered in black; pp. 40. Housed in a custom chemise and slipcase. $125,000.
Rare first edition of T.S. Eliot’s first book, one of only 500 copies printed, in the original fragile paper wrappers, inscribed by Eliot on the title page less than one year before his death to literary scholar William Shelton Gray, Jr., “Inscribed for William S. Gray by T.S. Eliot 19.v.64.”
One cannot overestimate the significance of this slender volume; this was the first great volume of poetry from a writer who literally transformed English poetry. Copies of this fragile volume are exceedingly rare—only 500 copies in total were printed, and signed or inscribed copies are extraordinarily so. "The guiding spirit behind Eliot's first book of poetry had been that of Ezra Pound. He first broached the idea and, because of the worries and fatigue which preoccupied Eliot, organized and collected the material which is contained within the volume… It was not easy to find a publisher… Pound took the typescript to Harriet Shaw Weaver of the Egoist. He told her, in confidence, that he would raise the money for the printing of the book if she would allow him to use her imprint. She agreed (in fact, the money came largely from Dorothy Pound, although Eliot was not to know this)" (Ackroyd, 79). "His first important publication, and the first masterpiece of 'modernism' in English, was 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.' Nothing like the first three lines of 'Prufrock' had previously appeared in English poetry" (Britannica). In addition to the famous title poem, the work contains some of Eliot's finest poems: "The Portrait of a Lady," "Preludes," and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night," among others. Gallup A1. Sackton A1. Connolly, Modern Movement 30a.
The owner of this volume, William Shelton Gray, Jr., first met T. S. Eliot at Harvard University in the late 1940s. "I first met Mr. Eliott as an undergraduate student at Harvard University when he came there as a guest lecturer. While he stayed at my dormitory, Eliot House, he asked me to call on him the next time I was in London." Some years later, while Gray was attending the University of Exeter and working on his Ph.D. dissertation, The Symbolic Continuity in the Poems of T. S. Eliot, he took up Eliot's offer and contacted him. "I got to know Mr. Eliot rather well, mostly in his office at Faber and Faber on Russell Square in London. When I knew him it was late in his life. It was in the late 1950s. He had a deep laugh. He suffered from some bronchial condition. He was always humped over like a question mark… He would see anyone who would write a week ahead on Wednesday afternoons after lunch. You had thirty minutes. If your meeting was at three, you were ushered in at three. At three-thirty sharp, a secretary came and that was the end. On the mantel in his office he kept three photographs: one of his [second] wife, one of Virginia Woolf and one of Groucho Marx. When I was writing my dissertation he was very helpful and read over parts of it and commented on it. Mr. Eliot never ever under any circumstances discussed his own works directly, but he would discuss openly the works of others. In informal conversation he would ask me questions about America, about the students' reaction to his work. He said he knew they bought his work because he got the royalties, but that didn't necessarily mean that they read his work. He had a very modest manner, rather unusual, very correct, very proper, very exact and very punctual. He always thought about a question before he would answer it and he would always give you a concise, very precise answer. I think these two qualities—conciseness and precision— tend to characterize him. Mr. Eliot always impressed me as being a very kind and modest person. Through Mr. Eliot and his kindness, I met a number of other writers and interesting people in London, such as Edward Morgan Forster, William Somerset Maugham and Agnes Wilson. In addition, before teaching at Randolph-Macon College, I taught at a boys' prep school in London thanks to Mr. Eliot, who helped me get the job. The last time I saw him he was in his office. I asked him whether he considered himself to be an American or English poet, to which he answered, American" (The William Shelton Gray, Jr. Library, Part II, audio recording). It was apparently at his last meeting with Eliot, in May of 1964, that Gray presented several volumes for Eliot to sign. One was a first edition of Prufrock and Other Observations, which Gray had purchased that day from Bernard Quaritch Ltd. for fifty pounds; another was the first English edition of The Waste Land. In addition, Eliot inscribed Gray's personal copies of Eliot's Complete Poems and Plays and The Sacred Wood, which he used in writing his dissertation. Eliot died in early January 1965.
Overall in excellent condition for such a fragile book: front hinge tender, early professional reattachment to secure the spine, a few spots of soiling to wrappers.