A86 STEPS [1958]

First edition:

STEPS | Stories | Talks | Essays | Poems | Studies in History | BY | ROBERT GRAVES [publisher’s emblem] | CASSELL ∙ LONDON

Collation: [ A]8 B–W8 X/X*2 /8 Y8, 178 leaves.

pp.[i]–[ii] blank; p.[iii] STEPS; p.[iv] blank; p.[v] title-page; p.[vi] publisher’s, copyright, publication and printer’s notices; pp.vii–ix Contents; p.[x] blank; p.xi Foreword; p.[xii] blank; pp.[1] – [2]3–343 text, with pp.[1, 61, 155, 229, 263] being section headings and pp.12, 60, 62, 154, 156, 228, 230, 264] being blank; p.[344] blank.

21.6 × 13.8 cm. Bulk: 2.8/3.4 cm. White wove paper; all edges trimmed. Whitewove endpapers. Bound in sea-green cloth; front and back blank; spine stamped in gold: [light-heavy-light rules] | STEPS | [light rule] | [longer heavy rule] | [light rule] | ROBERT | GRAVES | [light-heavy-light rules] | CASSELL

Price: 30s. Number of copies: 2,996. Published 13 November 1958 in blue-grey dust-jacket printed in green and black.

Contents: Foreword – STORIES: A Bicycle in Majorca – Evidence of Affluence – The Viscountess and the Short-Haired Girl – A Toast to Ava Gardner – TALKS: Legitimate Criticism of Poetry – The White Goddess – Sweeney among the Blackbirds – The Making and Marketing of Poetry – Pulling a Poem Apart –ESSAYS: Pandora’s Box and Eve’s Apple – The Gold Roofs of Sinadon – An Eminent Collaborationist – Don’t Fidget, Young Man! – Colonel Lawrence’s Odyssey – Maenads, Junkies and Others – The Language as Spoken – It Ended with a Bang – Legends of the Bible – And the Children’s Teeth are Set on Edge – Progessive Puericulture – POEMS: Preface to a Reading of New Poems at the University of Michigan – The Face in the Mirror – Song for New Year’s Eve – Alexander and Queen Janet – The Coral Pool – Gratitude for a Nightmare – Friday Night – The Naked and the Nude – Woman and Tree – Forbidden Words – Hotel Bed at Lugano – The Enlisted Man – A Slice of Wedding Cake – A Plea to Boys and Girls – Trudge, Body! – Mike and Mandy – The Christmas Robin – Nothing – Call It a Good Marriage – Read Me, Please! – The Second-Fated – The Twin of Sleep – Around the Mountain – STUDIES IN HISTORY: The Fifth Column at Troy – A Dead Branch of the Tree of Israel – Was Benedict Arnold a Traitor? – The Cultured Romans – New Light on an Old Murder – What Food the Centaurs Ate

Note: p.315, ll.3–4 has ‘Whole,/some’ for ‘Whole-/some’.