SCOTT MONCRIEFF, C. K. (trans.).

£500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Song of Roland. First Scott Moncrieff edition, inscribed by the translator on the front free endpaper, "To Godfrey Locker Lampson from Charles Scott Moncrieff, August 1920". Scott Moncrieff has additionally inscribed the final page, underneath the printed authorial credit to Turold, "and Charles Scott Moncrieff translated, 1919". The recipient was Locker-Lampson (1875-1946), Conservative MP, poet, and essayist.Scott Moncrieff's lauded translation from the Old French of the famous 11th-century chanson de geste was published in the same year he translated Beowulf, and a few years before he began his monumental translation of Proust's roman-fleuve (1922-31). The Song of Roland's themes of martial chivalry and comradeship is reflected through the three dedicatory poems, in which Scott Moncrieff honours his fallen friends or lovers Wilfred Owen, Philip Bainbridge, and Ian Mackenzie. Scott Moncrieff himself fought with the Kings Own Scottish Borderers from 1914 to 1917, his service ending after being injured by an artillery shell. In his introduction, G. K. Chesterton ends on the sombre note that "war is never finished in this world; and the grass has hardly grown on the graves of our own friends who fell in it" (p. xii).An ink correction appears on page 128, likely in Scott Moncrieff's hand.

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