ACKLAND, Valentine.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Later Poems. First edition of this posthumously printed collection, selected and published by Ackland's partner, Sylvia Townsend Warner, as a keepsake for friends of the poet. Ackland died of breast cancer on 9 November 1969; this edition was published almost exactly a year later. Warner notes in her diary that she "sent off 16 copies" on 6 November 1970 (Warner, p. 349)."I finished the proofs of Later Poems. As I sat breaking my heart over the last galley, I heard her praising me because I was truthful" (Warner, p. 349). We have traced seven copies held institutionally worldwide. Ackland lived as a married couple with Warner for 38 years. Their love letters were published in 1998 under the title I'll Stand By You and "constitute an extraordinary lesbian love story" (ODNB). "Ackland's meditative lyric voice is most at home describing the natural world (which she does in an exaltedly scientific spirit) and has much more in common with the past writers she admired, particularly John Clare, William Cowper, Thomas Traherne, and George Crabbe, than with her contemporaries" (ODNB). Her "intensely musical and ambitious love poetry" is currently being rediscovered and re-evaluated by authors such as Ali Smith (Bainbridge).

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