The Espalier Townsend Warner, Sylvia Modern Firsts,Poetry

FIRST UK EDITION. 8vo. Original blue and black mottled cloth, (faded) green paper title label to spine. Fore- and bottom edges untrimmed. Wear and fine bands of fading to spine ends, bottom corners bruised. Some foxing, heaviest at endpapers and prelims, spare title label tipped in to rear. Else, clean and tight. In the original dust jacket: browned and creased, extremities chipped, joints tender, a number of closed tears. Still, a nice copy of STW's first book, a poetry collection praised by Arthur Quiller-Couch and A E Housman. Very good/ good With printed dedication to "P. C. Buck", STW's long-time married lover and music teacher (of piano and organ), and Director of Music at Harrow, Dr. (later Sir) Percy Buck. They both edited Tudor Church Music. 1000 copies of The Espalier were printed. Of her title, STW wrote: "it seems to me expressive — a naturally rather straggling plant as the mind is — mine at any rate straggles — deprived and formalised into producing fruit." Russell & Lawrence Mitchell 1a; Harmon, Claire (1991) Sylvia Townsend Warner: A biography (London: Minerva).