First edition. Original dark blue-black cloth with paper title label on the spine. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on the front endpaper to his Cambridge friends Bill and Eva Hubback, "Bill / Eva / 1911 / R.B.". Five further autograph corrections by Brooke to the text: correcting misprints on pages viii and 81, adding the word "so" to the second line of the second verse on p.32, changing the title of the poem on p.34 from "Libido" to "Lust" and changing "Senility's greasy furtive love-making" to "senility's queasy furtive love-making" on p.35. A very good copy indeed, the title label a little chipped and the front hinge slightly tender, but clean and crisp throughout.

An exceptional and rare presentation copy of Brooke's first commercially published work.
Bill and Eva were friends of Rupert Brooke from Cambridge. The three of them were part of the group that Virginia Woolf referred to as the "neo-pagans", which also included Dorothy Layton, Helen Verrall, Margery Olivier, Jerry Pinsent, and Dolly Rose.
Accompanying this copy is an autograph letter from the poet Frances Cornford to the Brooke's literary executor Edward Marsh, identifying the recipients of this copy: "... Bill & Eva Hubback I'm sure. He was killed in the first war - a burning Fabian (what an odd combination those words, make now). She was of a rather distinguished Jewish family and a delightful person - can't remember the name...". Also laid in is a brief autograph letter from Edward Marsh, passing on Cornford's letter to an unidentified recipient in answer to a question of the identity of the recipients of this book.
'Poems' is the only collection published in Brooke's short lifetime, before he died one of the most famous deaths in English history on St George's Day 1915. Owing to this and to the modest print run of 500 copies, inscribed copies appear very seldom in commerce: a meagre six examples in the last century 1939, 1946, 1968, 1972, 1988 (the present copy) and 1990.
The authorial corrections to the text on pages 32 and 35 appear in the second edition of 1913. Brooke's manuscript altering the title the poem 'Libido' to 'Lust' was a reversal of a change forced upon him by his publishers, who asked for the poem to be removed entirely, but eventually settled for the change of title. This title remained until 'Collected Poems' of 1918.

Keynes 5.

Stock ID: 45453