UP THE LINE TO DEATH: THE WAR POETS 1914-18 [with] THE TERRIBLE RAIN: THE WAR POETS 1939-45:

First editions, first printings. Two Volumes. With a tipped in autograph letter from the editor in volume two. Original grey and red cloth respectively, lettered in silver to spines. Very near fine copies, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. In the near fine, unclipped jackets, both with a touch of wear to edges and extremities and a little dust and toning to rear panels. A very nice set of these two classic anthologies.

With a manuscript letter, dated "14 Sep 66", from the editor, Brian Gardner, tipped in to the front endpaper of 'The Terrible Rain': "Dear Kenneth, As you were kind enough to say you had enjoyed the first 'half-pint', I thought you might like to have the second." The recipient is Kenneth Parker, chief editor at Cassell (who worked with Robert Graves, whose poems feature in the earlier of these two volumes). Both of these anthologies, classics of their genre, remain in print to this day. In addition to the expected names and poems, both include an array of lesser known poems and poets, valuable in themselves but also serving to illuminate the undisputed great poems among them. Short biographies for each of the poets are provided. In his introduction to 'Up the Line to Death', Edmund Blunden (whose poems are in the anthology) writes of Gardner's selection that it "is not only a literary achievement of the first order, but a testimony of the spirit of man worthy of the 'lost generation'."