Ash Wednesday
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons / Knickerbocker Press, 1930. First edition. Small thin quarto (8 inches tall), original black cloth, spine and front board lettered in yellow, uncut, original glassine dust wrapper, 29 pages. Fine. Item #1810
"GRACE TO THE MOTHER / FOR THE GARDEN / WHERE ALL LOVE ENDS"
First American trade edition of T.S. Eliot's conversion poem—his first major work after his 1927 entrance into the Church of England. An exceptional copy, complete in the original blank glassine wrapper.
Eliot marked his embrace of Anglicanism with a series of six Anglo-Catholic meditations, incorporating three previously published sections: "Perch' Io non Spero" (part I), "Salutation" (part II), and "Som de l'escalina" (part III). Ash Wednesday marked a stylistic pivot from those poems predating Eliot's conversion, away from concerns of earthly materialism towards the contemplation of spiritual love through his allusions to Dante and Our Lady. "Eliot's first major poem following his conversion was the penitential 'Ash Wednesday," and he went on to produce several major works of Christian literature. Taken as a whole, one can see Eliot's major work paralleling that of his master Dante" (Joseph Pearce). Eliot dedicated Ash Wednesday to his (estranged) wife, Vivienne, but the dedication was removed from later editions. This edition, printed on laid paper by the Knickerbocker Press, was published in an edition of 2000 copies in September 1930 (the same year as the British trade and limited editions). Donald Gallup, T.S. Eliot: A Bibliography, A15c; Joseph Pearce. Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape.
Price: $600.00