BRIDGES, Robert.

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The Testament of Beauty. Signed limited edition, number 8 of 250 copies of which this is one of 50 copies signed by the author. The different issues had different dust jackets. The Times Literary Supplement found the work "a gift of healing in a time of need", and stated that it was the author's "greatest poem".McKay states that "in the signed copies the abbreviation No. is farther below the certificate than in the unsigned copies, in order to leave room for the signature"."In 1926 Bridges' daughter Margaret died, and he and his wife were devastated. Urged by [his wife], he tinkered with a poem he had begun two years earlier. Then, after a break, he returned to it and spent the next three years writing what became The Testament of Beauty, the longest of his poems. It is a discursive work, setting out his understanding of man's nature, spiced with scenes and incidents from his experience and reading. When Oxford University Press published it, just in time for Bridges' eighty-fifth birthday in 1929, they were unprepared for its success. Printings could scarcely keep up with demand, and by 1946 it had sold over 70,000 copies" (ODNB).

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