Thomas, Edward (his copy)
Poems by Lady Margaret Sackville
£1,071
Auction: 05 February 2025 from 10:00 GMT
Description
London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1901. First edition, first impression, 8vo, 120 pp., original boards, replacement label tipped to rear pastedown
Footnote
With Edward Thomas's ownership inscription in black ink to the front free endpaper; the fifth stanza of the poem ‘The Death of Beatrice’ on page 41 is annotated in pencil ‘D.G.R.’, presumably a reference to Dante Gabriel Rossetti; there are further pencil-markings to pages 6, 14, 15, 17, 19, 47 and 50. Thomas's review of the work appeared in the 2nd July 1901 edition of the Daily Chronicle, where he began work shortly after leaving Oxford. ‘In 1901 Thomas and his family moved to Rose Acre Cottage at Bearsted, near Maidstone, Kent. His dependence on reviewing caused a conflict between necessity and creativity. Despite succeeding Lionel Johnson as a regular reviewer for the Daily Chronicle, he was earning less than £2 a week. He mainly reviewed contemporary poetry, reprints, criticism, and country books … During these years Thomas often saw himself as “a doomed hack” … Repressed creativity was a factor in his recurrent physical and psychological breakdowns’ (ODNB).