A Boy's Will, copy "54" of the final 135 first edition copies, which were signed and numbered by Frost in 1943.
London: David Nutt, 1913. First edition, only printing, final binding variant. Wraps. This first edition, final binding variant of Robert Frost’s first published book is copy number 54 of the final 135 copies signed and numbered by the author in 1943. Despite its fragile wraps binding, this copy approaches near fine condition. The binding is square, complete, tight, and sharp-cornered, appearing unread, with no vertical spine creases. We note only trivial wear to extremities and mild soiling and toning. The contents are immaculate, with no spotting or previous ownership marks. Frost signed and numbered this copy “Robert Frost | 54” just below his printed name on the title page.
First published in England in 1913, the publication history of A Boy’s Will is complicated by the fact that the reported 1,000 first edition sheets saw two issues in four variant bindings, owing in part to the bankruptcy of the original publisher (Nutt) and sale of remaining first edition sheets during the subsequent liquidation. This copy is the fourth and final binding – designated binding “D” – one of the last 135 copies signed and numbered by Frost in 1943.
When the original publisher went out of business, the remaining stock of unbound sheets passed in ownership from Simpkin Marshall (who had some bound, known as Binding “C”) to Dunster House. “In 1943 Herman Cohen of the Chiswick Book Shop, New York, bought the stock of Dunster House when that shop went out of business. In the stock he found 135 copies of A Boy’s Will, second issue, binding D. Cohen consulted Captain Louis Henry Cohn of The House of Books, Ltd., New York, whom he knew to be a close personal friend of Robert Frost. Captain Cohn asked Frost to sign and number the 135 copies, and Frost agreed to do so.” Frost wrote of the arrangement “It’s an irony of time that they should come round to me in the way they have.” (Crane, A2, p.9)
Louis Henry Cohn (1889-1953) was a colorful figure who merits further mention. Cohn was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Cleveland but, taking a cue from his French mother, served with the French Foreign Legion during WWI, rising to the rank of Captain, by which he was known for the rest of his life, rendering him one of the few booksellers to be addressed by rank.
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 his recognition as a noteworthy American poet. The manuscript of A Boy’s Will was completed in England and accepted for publication by David Nutt on 1 April 1913. “Yeats pronounced the poetry ‘the best written in America for some time’” and Frost received “two extraordinary tributes in the Nation and the Chicago Dial and a superb review in the Academy.”
Accolades met his 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 he had 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. 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: Crane A2; ANB. Item #008615
Price: $3,500.00