Lord Weary's Castle [Signed, with Pulitzer Prize belly band]

New York: Harcourt, Brace [from 1946], 1947. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Second Impression (per Mazzaro) of the poet's first trade publication with [b.3.47] on copyright page, but styled "Second Edition" on dust jacket flap. Regardless, an early issue, published just months after the first printing and identical to it except for deletion of "first edition" from title-page verso and brief revisions to four poems ("The Exile's Return," "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket," "The First Sunday in Lent," and "Where the Rainbow Ends"). Signed as "Robert Lowell" (not "Cal," as often when copies were presented to family and close friends). Slim crown 8vo (201 x 135mm): ix,[1],69,[1]pp, with title-page vignette of Cain slaying Abel by Francis Parker. Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in gold, buff end papers; black typographic jacket printed in lemon and scarlet, with scarlet Pulitzer Prize wraparound band. A Fine example, tightly bound and clean throughout, the price-clipped jacket showing a few edge nicks, the band lightly restored by a paper conservationist. Given that the Pulitzer Prize was awarded in May, 1947, but this copy was brought out three months earlier, on February 3, the publisher probably supplied wraparound bands to booksellers for their existing stock. Mazzaro A3. Originally published the previous year, following the rare privately printed Land of Unlikeness (1944), collecting ten poems rewritten from that first book and thirty-two new poems composed after Lowell's release from prison, for refusing, on pacifistic grounds, to serve in the military during the Second World War. "The new poems focused on the destructiveness of war, the corruption of modern society, and the desire for Christian faith. The book was a literary sensation. It received the Pulitzer prize and a series of glowing reviews by the most prominent poetry critics in the United States and Great Britain. His friend Randall Jarrell concluded his review in The Nation by saying, 'One or two of these poems, I think, will be read as long as men remember English.' Overnight, Lowell was a major poet and a spokesperson for his generation. . . . In the volume's best poems, such as "At the Indian Killer's Grave", "Children of Light", "Colloquy in Black Rock", "Concord", "In the Cage", "Mr. Edwards and the Spider", "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket", "Rebellion" and "Where the Rainbow Ends," Lowell makes something poetically new out of a diverse array of literary, political, and cultural elements. " (Literary Encyclopedia) The book's title derives from the anonymous Scottish ballad "Lamkin," in which Lord Weary refuses to pay the stonemason Lamkin for building his castle. In revenge for this betrayal, Lamkin kills Weary's wife and child. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar 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.).