Eliot, T.S.:

$3,250 · Offered by William Reese Company

ARA VUS PREC. First edition, the variant state of the binding for the ordinary issue, in black cloth rather than black boards. From an edition specified as consisting of a total of 264 copies, this is copy #124 and is printed on heavy, untrimmed handmade paper. Ostensibly, there were to be ten unnumbered copies for review, but "the frequency with which unnumbered copies appear would indicate that a good many more than the unscheduled ten were so issued" - Gallup. See Gerald Cloud's informed commentary on the internal and binding variants of this, the first book-length publication of the Ovid Press.Properly "Ara Vos Prec," an unfortunate translation error on the titlepage of this first edition altered Eliot's intended title for posterity. Eliot's third collection of poems, the error would needle at him for the rest of his career. Nonetheless, a seminal collection of modernist poetry, and a foundational Eliot item. The ownership signature "Benj. Gilbert Brooks," is that of the poet, critic and miscellaneous writer, Benjamin G. Brooks. A tear sheet of his letter to The New Stateman (15 Nov. 1930) taking on the "pretentious inaccuracy of Mr. Brian Howard's article on T.S. Eliot..." is laid in.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.