BRIDGES, Robert.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Testament of Beauty [The End of Book IV]. First edition, second state, one of 17 copies "privately printed for the convenience of the author", comprising the conclusion of the author's "greatest poem" (Times Literary Supplement). Unrecorded by McKay, this is an extremely rare Bridges item."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).As noted by Hayward, there was a private issue of the poem, in five parts, printed for the author "as a basis for the revision of the poem". There were 25 copies, each, of Book I in February 1927, Book II in September 1927, Book III in May 1928, and Book IV, lines 1-1135 in February 1929. There were two states of the conclusion of Book IV: 4 copies in September 1929, and 17 copies in October 1929. The setting of the text is different to that published by Oxford University Press.A complete set of parts was shown at the 1947 English

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