The New Apocalypse: An Anthology of Criticism, Poems and Stories

London: The Fortune Press, [n.d.]. Later printing.

Important anthology of prose, poems, and criticism by a group of young British writers who called themselves "Poets of the Apocalypse." This was the first collection of the group and featured writing by Dylan Thomas, Dorian Cooke, J.F. Hendry, Norman McCaig, Robert Melville, Nicholas Moore, Philip O'Connor, and Henry Treece. The frontispiece shows a drawing by Picasso.

"The New Apocalypse" was first published in either 1939 or 1940 by The Fortune Press (accounts vary as to publication date). Our copy doesn't contain a date but is likely to be a later printing, probably from 1945-46. The rear cover of the dust jacket contains a list of works published by Fortune Press, many from the early 1940s.

In any case, early copies of this important anthology are scarce to the market.

"In the poetry of the Apocalypse, one discovers a mood of personal resignation to the brutality of modern life, combined with skepticism regarding any confident prophets of world order," according to Frederick H. Hoffman, writing in ELH, June 1948 (pps. 147-165). They rejected major British poets, like Auden and Spender, "but admired and imitated the work of the young Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. They were not followers of [D.H.] Lawrence in any strict sense, but they shared with him his opposition to external or impersonal ordering of their minds."

PHYSICAL DETAILS: Small Octavo (7 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches; 192 x128 mm), 99, [1] pages, in black boards, title in gilt to spine, in a printed, unclipped dust jacket (hard cover).

CONDITION: Some rubbing and flaking to the extremities of the boards, fading to the title on the spine, but internally clean, bright, and unmarked. Very Good or better in a Near Fine dust jacket that contains the original price (6s.) and has only the lightest of edge wear.