Description
16mo, pp. [24]. Stitched as issued in dark green paper wrappers, front wrapper printed in black. Wrappers creased and a little nicked to edges, lightly soiled. Indistinct gift inscription to title-page dated Xmas 1917.
The Hermit, and Other Poems.
- [s.n.]: [s.l.] 1917
£150
Notes
The rare, first poetry collection by Robert (sometimes Robin) Noble Denison Wilson (1899-1953), published when he was 18. The son of an Irish minister, he served in the First World War in the Royal Garrison Artillery, which would have been his occupation during the composition of these poems. No martial trace colours the work however, instead it features pastoral verses in praise of his native Ireland and a rendering of the legend of the Children of Lir, in full Celtic Twilight mode and influenced by Wilson's friend W.B. Yeats. After the war he worked as a schoolteacher, and it is his obituary in the school magazine of his old employer Rendcomb College which provides the attribution for the work, although they date it 1951 and claim it was published under the name Robin Wilson - just possibly a reprint, but unknown to any library catalogues if so. This printing is itself vanishingly scarce, being unknown to Library Hub and recorded in just a single copy in Worldcat, at Emory University, Georgia USA.
