Undertones of War. by BLUNDEN, Edmund - 1928

London: Richard Cobden-Sanderson,, 1928. Inscribed by Blunden with an original poem First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "F. and M. Downing, from their affectionate friend, E. Blunden: Nov. 27, 1928. Let Brown & Maud be ever found / O Peace, with me on British ground, / With Olives & with Laurels crowned". F. A. Downing was a lawyer and the founder and first secretary of the Elian Society, a dining club whose members included Blunden, G. K. Chesterton, Walter de la Mare, Alfred Noyes, and J. B. Priestley, among others. Downing was also secretary of the Charles Lamb Society and the dedicatee of Blunden's biography of Leigh Hunt. Undertones of War is Blunden's account of his service on the Western Front between 1916 and 1918, published together with a selection of his war poetry. Written without any documentation other than maps, "the book is first of all an almost perfect picture of the small events which made up the siege warfare of France and Flanders. Behind that one catches every now and then the shadow of the wings of the Furies" (Falls, p. 182). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, top edge trimmed, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. With dust jacket. Top edge and outer leaves lightly foxed, contents otherwise clean; spine of jacket a little toned, extremities lightly nicked with a couple of short closed tears to folds, unclipped: a very good copy in very good jacket. Cyril Falls, War Books: A Critical Guide, 1930.