Search Results: POETRY AND DRAMA from Back Lane Books (Member of IOBA)

The Alcestiad, or, A Life in the Sun; The Drunken Sisters, Wilder, Thornton; illustrated by Daniel Maffia. Published by The Franklin Library for The First Edition Society, Pennsylvania, 1977. 170pp. with illustrated sepia plates; introductory note by Brooks Atkinson, and a foreword by the author's sister Isabel Wilder. Olive green leather with gilt designs to front, back and spine; all edges gilt, peach satin end papers, and silk bookmark. Laid in "Notes from the Editors" booklet. In fine, unread condition.

Anthem for Doomed Youth: Poets of the Great War, Lyn Macdonald. Published by The Folio Society, 2000. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 270pp. Green cloth with black photographic image, gilt spine titles. Printed on green pages with back and green illustrations; photographic endpapers. In fine, unread condition; lacks slipcase. This is a collection of verse written during World War One, divided thematically.

Bar-Room Ballads, Service, Robert. Published by Reginald Saunders, Toronto, 1940. First Canadian Edition, First impression. Signed (not inscribed): Best of Luck: Robert Service on endpaper. 8vo up to 9½" tall. viii, [2], 169 pp. Bright teal cloth boards with gilt titles front and spine. Light spine slant, 3 tiny water spots to front board, light bumping to edges and corners. Owner's name in script top edge free endpaper; light toning to pages; otherwise contents are clean without marks, tears or folds. Unclipped jacket protected in mylar has rubbing; ruffling to rear panel top edge; sunning to spine with chip to head; and sunning to verso of jacket. Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a British born poet and writer whose poetry and verse is known and still celebrated world-wide.

The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography, Crawford, Robert. Published by Jonathan Cape, UK, 2009. Signed, dated and inscribed by author to title page. 8vo up to 9½" tall., xii, 465pp. with frontis-portrait, bibliographical references, and index. Black boards with gilt titles. Volume is in fine condition; dustjacket has light top edge ruffling and is otherwise fine.
Drawing on a surprising variety of untapped sources — from rediscovered poetry by Burns to manuscript journals, correspondence, interviews and oratory by his contemporaries — this new biography presents the remarkable life, loves, and struggles of the great poet. Robert Crawford outlines how Burns combined a childhood steeped in the peasant song-culture of rural Scotland with a consummate linguistic artistry to become not only the world's most popular love poet but also the controversial master poet of modern democracy.

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Heaney, Seamus. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 2000. 8vo up to 9½" tall. 213pp. Quarter black cloth over black boards, silver spine titles. Volume is in unread, unmarked condition; unclipped jacket is fine with very light shelf scuffing. Bilingual Edition with text in English and Old English. This is a new translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic chronicling the heroic adventures of Beowulf, the Scandinavian warrior who saves his people from the ravages of the monster Grendel and Grendel's mother. Winner of the Whitbread Award.

Birds, Beasts, and the Third Thing, Lawrence, D. H.; illustrated by Alice Provensen and Martin Provensen. Published by Viking Press, New York, 1982. First Illustrated Edition. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. 34pp. Blue hard boards with grey cloth spine; copper titles front and spine. Volume is in fine condition; unclipped jacket has very light shelf wear. A collection of poetry by the English author D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1923. These poems include some of Lawrence's finest reflections on the 'otherness' of the natural world.

Blue Homespun, Frank Oliver Call. Published by Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1924. Signed and dated in pencil to free endpaper: Frank Oliver Call, Feb 28, 1925. 12mo up to 7½" tall. 43 pp. with black and white illustrations by Orson S. Wheeler. Blue tweed cloth boards with gilt titles front. Boards have very light edge rubbing with a tiny loss of cloth midway spine and are otherwise fine. Very light ghost mark covers most of front free endpaper and otherwise, contents are in fine condition without tears, folds or markings. A lovely collectible copy.

New York. N.Y: Viking Press, 1968. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. Blue Juniata: Collected Poems, Cowley, Malcolm. Viking Press, New York, 1968. First edition. Grey cloth spine, blue boards; top edge blue; black endpapers. Protected in mylar. Jacket not price clipped; very minor rubbing top edge near spine on dustjacket; otherwise book is in unread, pristine condition.

The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World. Collins, Paul. Published by Bloomsbury, New York, 2009. First Edition. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 246pp., with suggested readings. Black boards with gilt titles. Volume is in fine, unread condition, in fine dustjacket
Many of the original 750 copies of Shakespeare's First Folio were gone before the turn of the 18th century. But a hundred years later, the greatest plays in English were rediscovered, revamped, and re-publicized, beginning the long and surprising process that secured the legacy of Shakespeare. Collin's recounts the book's remarkable journey, as it lies undiscovered for decades, burns, sinks, is bought and sold, and ultimately, becomes untouchable.

Borrowed Water: A Book of American Haiku, Los Altos Writers Roundtable. Published by Charles E. Tuttle Co., Rutland, VT, 1966, sixth printing 1973. 130pp. Cloth boards with dark blue rice paper endpapers; printed on pastel shades of laid paper with water color illustrations. Light shelf wear to unclipped jacket; volume is in fine, unmarked condition. A collection of haiku written by thirteen contributors of the Los Altos Writers Roundtable.

"An important experiment in writing haiku which are not Japanese but truly American, dealing with Western subjects." Haiku Form, Joan Giroux.

Chaucer, Ackroyd, Peter. Published by Chatto & Windus, London, 2004. First Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. 175pp. index, color illustrations. Black boards with silver titles, black endpapers. In fine, unread condition with the lightest of shelf wear to jacket.

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson; Mabel Loomis Todd [Editor]; T.W. Higginson [Editor]; George Gesner [Introduction]. Published by Gramercy, 1988. 256pp. Quarter rose over pink boards. Volume is in fine, unread condition; jacket has a very light turn up at front top edge.

The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton Embellished with many Engravings from Paintings and Drawings, Walton, Isaac and Charles Cotton. Published by Methuen & Co., London, 1903. New Edition. The Illustrated Pocket Library of Plain and Coloured Books. A facsimile of the second edition published by John Major in 1824. 16mo up to 6½" tall. 416 pp. with a small spine label bound-in between final text page and free endpaper. Red cloth boards with paper title block to spine. Boards have general wear with a tiny worm hole midway along outside spine joint affecting inner hinge with a tiny loss of paper. Contents are in generally fine condition with browning to free endpapers front and back with some transfer to pastedowns. The Complete (Compleat) Angler was first published in 1653 and remains enduringly popular with 1,097 editions published between 1653 and 2019 in 9 languages.

The Complete Works of Robert Browning and Mrs. E. B. Browning (Two Matching Sets 1898/1900)The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Browning, Robert. Published by Thomas Y. Crowell For the Society of English and French Literature, New York, 1898. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 12 volumes with extensive notes, the translations and prose works. Number 684 of a Limited Edition of 1000. 8vo up to 9½" tall. Frontispiece illustrations with tissue guards; additional engravings throughout. Half maroon morocco with decorated gilt spines in six compartments; maroon and gold marbled boards and marbled endpapers; top edges gilt; uncut edges. Very light toning to preliminaries, small tear to one tissue guard and otherwise contents in fine condition without tears, marks or folds. Binding remains tight and square with minimal wear to boards; gilt remains bright.The Complete Works of Mrs. E. B. Browning, Browning, E. B. (Limited Edition) Published by Thomas Y. Crowell For the Society of English… Read More

Complete Poems, Ernest Hemingway. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Nicholas Gerogiannis. Bison Books - University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1993. Revised Edition. 8vo up to 9½" tall. (xxvii) 170 pages with photographs, drawing and facsimiles of Hemingway's handwritten manuscripts. Contents in pristine condition; very light shelf wear to card covers.

The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Browning, Robert. Published by Thomas Y. Crowell For the Society of English and French Literature, New York, 1898. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 12 volumes with extensive notes, the translations and prose works. Number 684 of a Limited Edition of 1000. 8vo up to 9½" tall. Frontispiece illustrations with tissue guards; additional engravings throughout. Half maroon morocco with decorated gilt spines in six compartments; maroon and gold marbled boards and marbled endpapers; top edges gilt; uncut edges. Very light toning to preliminaries, small tear to one tissue guard and otherwise contents in fine condition without tears, marks or folds. Binding remains tight and square with minimal wear to boards; gilt remains bright.The Complete Works of Mrs. E. B. Browning, Browning, E. B. (Limited Edition) Published by Thomas Y. Crowell For the Society of English and French Literature, New York, 1900. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 6… Read More

The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950, Eliot, T.S. Published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1952. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 392 pp. with index of titles and index of first lines. Green cloth boards with black labels front and spine silver titles; light green top edge. Tape marks to free endpapers and otherwise contents are clean and unmarked; light wear to boards; rubbing to dustjacket edges.

Contested Will. Who Wrote Shakespeare? Shapiro, James. Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 2010. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 339pp., black and white illustrations, index. Quarter crimson over cream boards. Contents are in fine condition with a remainder mark to outside lower edge; light shelf wear to dustjacket.
In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, and Helen Keller.
Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him.

Dante, Francis Fergusson. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1966. 214pp. Black boards, red top edge. Stamped inked price to free endpaper and otherwise volume is in unmarked, fine condition. Jacket is clipped with light shelf wear. In two sections. Part one is a bibliography of Dante from his youth in Florence 1265-1293; participation in politics 1293-1302; cult of reason 1293-1308; political catastrophe and the final years 1308-1321. Part two discusses: The Commedia; The Inferno; The Purgatorio; The Paradiso. With bibliographical notes and index.

San Francisco, U.S.A.: Chronicle Books , 2005. Soft cover. Fine. Birk, Sandow. Dante's Purgatorio, Sanders, Marcus; Birk, Sandow (Illustrator). Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2005. Soft cover. Card cover with French flaps. Light shelf wear and tiny rub front; ext block in fine condition without marks, folds or tears. The second book of Dante Alighieri's classic poem 'The Divine Comedy,' this is set in a surreal San Francisco Bay Area, an outlandish and hopeful milieu for those who have a chance to wash their sins away.