COLLECTED POEMS

First UK edition, first printing (in its bibliographically complex second state). Original orange cloth, lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt fresh, the contents clean and bright throughout. In the very near fine dustwrapper with just a touch of rubbing to the upper spine tip and the merest fading to the spine (far less than usual). Not price-clipped (12s 6d net). An unusually sharp and bright example.

The 1951 collected edition of Marianne Moore's poems has a complex pedigree. In a 1973 letter to Moore's bibliographer, Craig Abbott, one P. F. du Sautoy of Faber and Faber explains (in Abbott's own account) that "Faber printed its first impression and also printed and bound for Macmillan, New York, an impression of 1,500 copies. When these arrived in New York, presumably in time for a projected publication date of November 1951, they were seized by U.S. customs officials—not, however, before part of the shipment had been released to Macmillan. Of those released, about forty copies were inscribed by Moore for presentation and a few others were sent out as review copies. [...] To avoid the loss of American copyright, Macmillan returned to Faber the rest of the copies, including those seized. Faber replaced the dust jacket, retained the Macmillan binding, supplied a cancel title page and copyright page [which doesn't mention of any of this], and issued these copies after it sold out its first impression." Abbott, confusingly, describes the resulting UK edition as the second impression, but as the sheets and binding are simultaneous with the first UK copies, it is more accurately described as the second state of the first printing. This copy has Abbott's first state wrapper (with the original 12s 6d price rather than the clipped, re-priced second state variant). The precedence in appearance (and production) of the UK edition may be explained by the high regard in which Moore was held by T. S. Eliot, who was then in charge of the Faber poetry list. In a preface to the 1935 Faber Selected Moore, he stated his "conviction, for what it is worth [...], that Miss Moore's poems form part of the small body of durable poetry written in our time." (Abbott A 10.a2b)