A84 5 PENS IN HAND 1958

First edition:

5 | PENS | IN | HAND | by Robert Graves | DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK | 1958

Collation: [1]–[15]12, 180 leaves.

p.[1] 5 Pens in Hand; p.[2] blank; p.[3] list of books by Graves; p.[4] blank; p.[5] title-page; p. [6] acknowledgement, copyright, printing, edition and designer’s notices; p.[7] FOREWORD; p.[8] blank; pp.[9]10–11 CONTENTS; p.[12] blank; pp. [13]–[15]16–360 text, with pp.[13, 31, 91, 145, 287, 331] being section-headings, pp.[14, 30, 32, 92, 144, 146, 286, 288, 332] being blank and pp.[33, 54, 73, 93, 100, 104, 107, 114, 118, 123,129, 137, 147, 152, 157, 161, 165, 175, 179, 184, 189, 194, 197, 202, 206, 211, 215, 219, 223, 227, 232, 235, 239, 243, 248, 253, 257, 264, 275, 289, 299, 317, 333] being unnumbered.

20.7 × 13.8 cm. Bulk: 2.7/3.3 cm. White wove paper; top and bottom edges trimmed. White wove endpapers. Bound in red-brown cloth with buff quarter-cloth spine; back blank; front has blue rule one-third from bottom across entire cover; spine stamped in brown and printed in blue: [two lines in brown:] Robert | Graves | [four lines in blue:] 5 | PENS | IN | HAND | [blue rule] | [in brown:] Doubleday

Price: $4.50. Number of copies: 4,500. Published 20 March 1958, in white dust-jacket printed in black, orange and green. The dust-jacket design is by Miriam Woods.

Contents: I. FOREWORD: Why I Live in Majorca – II. AMERICAN LECTURES: Legitimate Criticism of Poetry – The White Goddess – Diseases of Scholarship, Clinically Considered – III. CRITICAL ESSAYS: Pandora’s Box and Eve’s Apple – The Gold Roofs of Sinadon – Numismatics for Student Christians – An Eminent Collaborationist – Answer to a Religious Questionnaire – Paul’s Thorn – Don’t Fidget, Young Man! – Religion: None; Conditioning: Protestant – Colonel Lawrence’s Odyssey – IV. MOSTLY STORIES, MOSTLY FUNNY: Varro’s Four Hundred and Ninety Books – Treacle Tart – The Full Length – An Appointment for Candelmas – The Devil Is a Protestant – Trín-Trín-Trín – Earth to Earth – Epics Are Out of Fashion – New Light on Dream– Flight – Period Piece – They Say . . . They Say – Week-End at Cwm Tatws – 6 Valiant Bulls 6 – He Went out to Buy a Rhine – A Man May Not Marry His ... – God Grant Your Honour Many Years – The White Horse or The Great Southern Ghost Story’ – The Five Godfathers – Kill Them! Kill Them! – The Abominable Mr Gunn – Harold Vesey at the Gates of Hell – Life of the Poet Gnaeus Robertulus Gravesa – Ditching in a Fishless Sea – I Hate Poems – The French Thing – Evidence of Affluence – A Bicycle in Majorca – V. HISTORICAL ANOMALIES: The Fifth Column at Troy – The Whitaker Negroes – A Dead Branch on the Tree of Israel – VI. POEMS 1955–1957: Prologue to a Poetry Reading at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston – The Face in the Mirror – Forbidden Words – Song for New Year’s Eve – A Ballad of Alexander and Queen Janet – The Coral Pool – Gratitude for a Nightmare – Friday Night – The Naked and the Nude – Woman and Tree – Destruction of Evidence – Hotel Bed at Lugano – The Clearing – The Second-Fated – End of the World – Bitter Thoughts on Receiving a Slice of Cordelia’s Wedding Cake – The Question – A Plea to Boys and Girls – A Bouquet from a Fellow Roseman – Yes – The Outsider

Notes: ‘Why I Live in Majorca’ (pp. [15]16-29) is a previously unpublished version, combining elements of C455 and C505.0.1, which are thematically related but textually distinct.

Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, New York issued a photographic reprint in 1970.