The Waste Land.

by ELIOT, T. S.

$11,980 · Offered by Biblio

Richmond, Surrey: Printed and published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press,, 1923. I was neither / Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, / Looking into the heart of light, the silence First British edition in book form, sole impression, one of about 460 copies. Virginia Woolf painstakingly set the type herself, writing to Barbara Bagenal in July 1923, "I have just finished setting the whole of Mr. Eliot's poem with my own hands - you see how my hand trembles. Don't blame your eyes. It is my writing" (Letters, vol. III, p. 56). The Waste Land was originally published in the first issue of The Criterion, the quarterly review which Eliot edited, in October 1922, and was subsequently issued in book form in New York on 15 December 1922 by Boni & Liveright. This Hogarth edition was the one that Eliot preferred to use for presentation copies. This copy has the title label in Gallup's first state with asterisks (one of three states issued simultaneously). The blue marbled paper for the boards was likely prepared by Vanessa Bell. Octavo. Original blue marbled paper boards, white paper label to front cover printed in black. Bookplate of Oliver Brett, 3rd Viscount Esher (1881-1963), to front free endpaper verso. Spine and extremities toned and lightly worn, small loss to head of spine, joints partly split but sound, contents lightly foxed as usual. A very good copy. Gallup A6c; Woolmer 28. Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf, 6 vols, 1975-80.

• Year: 1923
• Printing: first
• Binding: hardcover

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