Preludes
London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875. First edition. Octavo (8 1/8 inches tall), original green cloth with beveled edges, gilt spine and front board, brown coated endpapers. Small bindery ticket, light scuffing to front board, smudging to verso of blank endpaper, offsetting to pg. 2. A nearly fine copy. Item #1860
"IF TO MY SON MY ALMS WERE GIVEN / I KNOW NOT, AND I WAIT FOR HEAVEN / HE DID NOT PLEAD FOR CHILD OF MINE / BUT FOR ANOTHER CHILD DIVINE"
First edition of Alice Meynell's Preludes—the first book by the Godmother of the Catholic Literary Revival. An exceptional example in the original beveled binding with sharp corners and bright gilt. Scarce in this condition.
Published soon after her conversion to Catholicism, under her maiden name of A.C. Thompson, Alice's "first published poems appeared as Preludes in 1875 and met with praise from Tennyson, Coventry Patmore, Aubrey de Vere, and John Ruskin" (ODNB). Preludes was illustrated by her sister, Elizabeth Thompson, with a frontispiece and six additional engraved plates (all with tissue guards). Alice "found herself a recognized poet. Ruskin wrote of three of the lyrics, San Lorenzo's Mother, To a Daisy, and A Letter from a Girl to Her Own Old Age, that they were 'the finest things I have seen, or felt, in modern verse'" (Calvert Alexander). Wilfrid Meynell, "a young Roman Catholic journalist in London, read a review of her work in the Pall Mall Gazette, and his admiration for the poems led to a meeting. The couple fell in love and, after overcoming parental opposition over Meynell's lack of money, they were married in London at the church of the Servite Fathers on 16 April 1877" (ODNB).
"Under the direction of Alice Meynell it was that the Catholic Literary Revival first took on the form of a movement" (Calvert Alexander). The Meynell's were "instrumental in popularizing other Catholic writers. Their tireless promotion of the Catholic literati in late Victorian and Edwardian England helped...give momentum to the Catholic literary revival as it entered the twentieth century" (Joseph Pearce). It was a measure of her importance that Alice Meynell was later considered for appointment as Poet Laureate of England in 1892 and 1913 (an honor that went instead to Alfred Austin and Robert Bridges). With an errata slip tipped in. Calvert Alexander. The Catholic Literary Revival: Three Phases in its Development from 1845 to the Present; Joseph Pearce. Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape.
Price: $500.00