THE COLLECTED POETRY OF FRANCIS THOMPSON

Edition deluxe. Limited edition. Signed by the publisher and the printer. Limp vellum with gilt titles and decorations to the spine and upper board with green ribbon ties. Top edge gilt, other edges deckled. With a tissue-guarded black and white frontispiece portrait of Francis Thompson. A very good copy, the binding square and firm, the vellum a little rubbed, rippled and lightly marked. The ribbon from the top of the lower panel has come away and is loosely laid in at the rear. there are a few infrequent spots to the deckled edges which are visible at the margins, the contents are otherwise clean and without previous owners' stamps or inscriptions.

Issued in a limited edition of 500 copies, this example is numbered 197 and signed by the publisher and printer "Hodder Stoughton / J & A Constable" in black ink on the limitation page. An attractively produced edition. Francis Thompson (1859-1907) was an English poet often associated with catholic mysticism. He trained in medicine before pursuing a career as a writer in a period that saw him becoming addicted to opium and living on the streets of London. He was discovered by the literary couple Alice and Wilfrid Meynell who offered him shelter and published his poetry, and it was under their patronage that Thompson created the greater part of his body of work.