TWENTY-FIVE POEMS

1936. ["another unprocurable"] London: J. M. Dent & Sons, (1936). Original grey boards, with dust jacket.

First Edition of Thomas's second book, which consisted of only 730 copies. His only earlier book had been EIGHTEEN POEMS, a 1934 issue of 250 copies by the Sunday Referee & Parton Bookshop. After the variously toned but never indifferent reception accorded to EIGHTEEN POEMS, Thomas's name began to appear regularly in a number of literary journals. But Victor Neuberg [poetry editor of the Sunday Referee] felt that the opportunities provided by that book and the auguries of 'promise' which it had elicited from the critics should not be left too long in mid air, and early in 1936 he suggested that Thomas might collect together what poems he had written over the past year with a view to preparing a second book. Within a few days Thomas handed him a sheaf of twenty-one poems. Neuberg, having read and been impressed by them, advised making up the number to a round twenty-five. The additional four were quickly supplied... [Rolph] Both books (EIGHTEEN and TWENTY-FIVE) were chosen by Cyril Connolly to constitute one of the 100 Key Books of the Modern Movement: "These first poems (very uneven) shattered for those who discovered them the whole revolutionary optimism of the Thirties." (Connolly labels TWENTY-FIVE POEMS "another unprocurable".) This is a fine copy of this fragile book (one small spot on the rear board); included is the grey printed dust jacket in near-fine condition (the same rear-panel spot; a tiny bit of wear at the corners; the front turn-in is price-clipped, but since the book carries the small label of a Johannesburg bookseller founded in 1927, this clipping may have been done prior to export). Rolph B3; Maud p. 4; Connolly Modern Movement #78b.