THE COLOSSUS And Other Poems.

First edition, first printing. Original green cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents clean throughout and without spotting. Complete with the near fine dustwrapper, a little toned and dusty, with a small area of surface abrasion to the spine, slightly grazing the top edge of the author's printed surname. Not price-clipped (15s net to the front flap). An attractive copy of the author's first book, and the only book of poems she published during her lifetime.

After spending over a year unsuccessfully trying to place 'The Colossus', her first full collection, with a US publisher, Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother Aurelia on February 11, 1960 informing her that "the first British publisher I sent my new collection of poems to [...] wrote back within the week accepting them! Amaze of amaze. I was so hardened to rejections that I waited till I had actually signed the contract [...] before writing to you." The publisher was Heinemann, and 500 copies of 'The Colossus and Other Poems' were published in October, 1960. The volume was eventually issued in the US by Alfred Knopf in 1962. It was the only book of poems she would publish before her death in 1963. 'The Bell Jar', her only novel (also first published in the UK) was published pseudonymously in January, 1963, the month before she died. Of 'The Colossus', Seamus Heaney later noted how "on every page, a poet is serving notice that she has earned her credentials and knows her trade."