North of Boston, inscribed by in April 1927 Frost with six lines of strikingly relevant verse from his poem herein, "The Black Cottage".
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1926. Second Edition, later printing. Hardcover. This copy of the author’s second book is not only signed and dated by Frost, but also inscribed with six lines from his poem “The Black Cottage”. The nine-line inscription inked on the front free endpaper reads: “For dear me why abandon a belief | Merely because it ceases to be true. | Cling to it long enough and not a doubt | It will turn true again, for so it goes. | Most of the change we think we see in life | Is due to truths being in and out of favor. (p.54 | Robert Frost | For Lesley Taylor | April 1927”. This from the poet who read at President Kennedy’s inauguration more than half a century ago seems a pointedly relevant inscription in our “post-truth” era of “alternate facts”.
When first published in 1914, North of Boston was swiftly hailed by important reviews, bolstering Frost’s newly minted literary reputation and precipitating his return to the United States from England, where his first two books were published. This inscribed copy is the November 1926 printing of the second edition. Condition is good plus. The publisher’s quarter green cloth binding over green paper-covered boards remains square and tight. We note wear to the edges of the fragile boards, but the chief flaw of the binding is a 4 cm split to the cloth, angling up and slightly leftwards just to the right of the lower rear joint. Though it does not threaten binding integrity, this aesthetic flaw prevents our grading condition as “very good” or better. The contents show moderate age-toning, most evident to the untrimmed fore edges, and light spotting, primarily confined to the half-title and frontispiece verso. The sole previous ownership mark is the decorative bookplate of “Leslie Taylor” affixed to the front pastedown – ostensibly the inscription recipient, whose name Frost apparently misspelled.
Iconic American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), the quintessential poetic voice of New England, was actually born in San Francisco and first published in England. When Frost was eleven, his newly widowed mother moved east to Salem, New Hampshire, to resume a teaching career. There Frost swiftly found his poetic voice, infused by New England scenes and sensibilities. Promising as both a student and writer, Frost nonetheless dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard, supporting himself and a young family by teaching and farming.
Ironically, it was a 1912 move to England with his wife and children – “the place to be poor and to write poems” – that finally catalyzed Frost’s recognition as a noteworthy American poet. The manuscript of A Boy’s Will was completed in England and published by David Nutt in 1913. A convocation of critical recognition, introduction to other writers, and creative energy supported the English publication of Frost’s second book, North of Boston, in 1914, after which “Frost’s reputation as a leading poet had been firmly established in England, and Henry Holt agreed to publish his books in America.” “The Black Cottage” was initially drafted on Frost’s farm in 1905, redrafted in 1913 during his sojourn in England, and first published in North of Boston.
Accolades met Frost’s return to America at the end of 1914 and by 1917 a move to Amherst “launched him on the twofold career he would lead for the rest of his life: teaching whatever “subjects” he pleased at a congenial college… and “barding around,” his term for “saying” poems in a conversational performance.” By 1924, two years before this inscribed copy was published, Frost won the first of his eventual four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry (1931, 1937, and 1943). Frost spent the final decade and a half of his life as “the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century” with a host of academic and civic honors to his credit. Two years before his death he became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961).
References: ANB; Tuten & Zubizarreta; ANB. Item #008611
Price: $1,850.00