A63 THE COMMON ASPHODEL [1949]

First edition:

THE | COMMON | ASPHODEL | COLLECTED ESSAYS ON POETRY | 1922–1949 | by | ROBERT GRAVES | [publisher’s emblem] | HAMISH HAMILTON | LONDON

Collation: [A]8 B–X8 Y6, 174 leaves.

p.[i] THE COMMON ASPHODEL; p.[ii] blank; [frontispiece, back blank]; p.[iii] title-page; p.[iv] publication and printer’s notices; p.v–vi CONTENTS; pp.vii–xi INTRODUCTION; p.[xii] blank; pp.1–329 text, with pp.[50, 60, 168, 196, 224, 326] blank; p.[330] blank; pp.331 –335 INDEX; p.[336] blank.

21.3 × 13.6 cm. Bulk: 2.4/2.9 cm. White wove paper; all edges trimmed. White wove endpapers. Bound in orange-red cloth; front and back blank; spine stamped in gold: [six lines enclosed in rectangular decorative rule box:] THE | COMMON | ASPHODEL | [star] | ROBERT | GRAVES | [publisher’s emblem]

Price: 15s. Number of copies undisclosed. Published in September 1949 in white dust-jacket printed in black and powder blue.

Contents: Introduction – Observations on Poetry (1922–1925): I. The Poetic Trance – II. Prose and Poetry – III. Fake Poetry and Bad Poetry – IV. Schools – V. Rhyme – VI. Ariphrades – VII. Vers Libre – VIII. The Hounds of Spring – IX. The Outward and Inward Ears – X. Secondary Elaboration – XI. The Arrogance of Poets – XII. Scientific English – XIII. Texture – XIV. Fashions in Poetry – XV. ‘Bread I Dip in the River’ – XVI. Hélas, C’est Victor Hugo – XVII. Shakespeare’s Fair Copies – XVIII. The Grosser Senses – XIX. Centenaries – XX Hamlet – The Sources of The Tempest (1925) – The Future of Poetry (1926) – Modernist Poetry (with Laura Riding, 1926): I. Modernist Poetry and the Plain Reader’s Rights – II. The Problem of Form and Subject-matter – III. A Study in Original Punctuation and Spelling – IV. The Unpopularity of Modernist Poetry – V. Dead Movements – VI. The Making of the Poem – VII. Modernist Poetry and Civilization – VIII. Variety in Modernist Poetry – IX. The Humorous Element – Anthologies (with Laura Riding, 1927): I. True Anthologies and Popular Anthologies – II. The Perfect Modern Lyric – Loving Mad Tom (1927) – Rudyard Kipling (1928) – Essays from Epilogue (1935–1937): I. Nietzsche – II. Coleridge and Wordsworth – III. Keats and Shelley – IV. The Pastoral – V. Official and Unofficial Literature – VI. Lucretius and Jeans – VII. Poetry and Politics (with Laura Riding) – VIII. Poetic Drama (with Laura Riding) – How Poets See (1939) – The Poets of World War II (1942) – ‘Mad Mr. Swinburne’ (1945) – The Ghost of Milton (1947) – The Common Asphodel (1949) – Index.

Notes: Folcroft Library Editions issued a photographic reprint in 1969 and in 1971issued a photographic reprint “limited edition” of 150 copies. Haskell House Publishers, New York, issued a photographic reprint 1970, bound in pale sage green cloth stamped in gold on the spine; issued without dust-jacket. Norwood Editions, Norwood, Pennsylvania, published a photographic reprint in 1976, as did Richard West, Philadelphia, in 1977.