THE ANATHEMATA: Fragments of an Attempted Writing.

First edition, first printing. Original light brown cloth, the spine lettered in gilt to a gilt-framed red label, in the dustwrapper bearing lettering by the author in black and red to spine and front panel. With nine plates of inscriptions and illustrations by the author. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt bright and clean (a touch softened to spine tips), the contents clean without inscriptions or stamps. There are a few very light spots visible to the page block edges, and some spotting and light offsetting to endpapers, but the pages themselves remain clean and bright. Complete with the toned dustwrapper that is rubbed to corners and spine tips, with some minor loss to the upper tip of the lightly marked spine. There are a few nicks and a short closed tear to the upper edge of the rear panel. Not price-clipped (25s. net to the front flap). A very presentable copy.

"'The Anathemata' is not a sequel to 'In Parenthesis', but an equally original work by a wholly unclassifiable author" (from the jacket). In the extended preface to the work, Jones begins by citing Nennius ("or whoever composed the introductory matter to the [ninth century] 'Historia Brittonum'"): "I have made a heap of all that I could find", while noting that "this writing is neither a history of the Britons nor a history of any sort [...] Part of my task has been to allow myself to be directed by motifs gathered together from such sources as have by accident been available to me and to make a work out of those mixed data." In his review of the work, W. H. Auden wrote that after "liv[ing] with 'The Anathemata' for the last ten months, I feel as certain as one can feel of anything that it is one of the most important poems of our time. [...] Mr Jones has set out to write a poem [...] at once epic, contemporary, and Christian." ('Encounter', February 1954).