Four Quartets [comprising East Coker, Burnt Norton, The Dry Salvages, Little Gidding] de ELIOT, T[homas]. S[tearns], 1888-1965 - 1943

New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943. First Edition. Hardcover. -/Fine. First Printing ("First American Edition" on copyright page) of the first single-volume edition of Eliot's wartime masterpiece (preceding the British edition by more than a year), in the first-issue dust jacket (with nine titles to back panel). Tall, slim 8vo: [8],39,[1]pp. Original black cloth, spine titled in gold; jacket printed in gray and black, priced $2. About Fine (lettering to spine occasionally rubbed); slight toning to jacket's spine panel, crown of spine nicked, else exceptionally well-preserved. Gallup A43. A total of 4,165 copies were printed, but 3,777 destroyed because the margins were incorrectly set, because of unskilled wartime labor. The remaining 788 copies, of which this is one, were issued as review copies and to preserve copyright. Collects four interrelated poems published separately over the previous three years. East Coker is the village in Somerset from which Eliot's ancestors departed for the New World, in 1669; Burnt Norton refers to the Gloucestershire manor house erected on the foundation of a house that burned to the ground in 17th century; The Dry Salvages is a group of rocks off Cape Ann, and so harks to the poet's New England roots, and Little Gidding is the manor in Huntingdonshire where Nicholas Ferrar founded an Anglican religious community in the mid-17th century. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).