NEW HAMPSHIRE with 11-line HOLOGRAPH POEM, with UNRECORDED TITLE
New Hampshire. A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1923.
Price: $13,500.00
About the item
First edition, trade issue. With 5 woodcuts by J. J. Lankes. x, 113, [1] pp. 1 vols. 8vo. NEW HAMPSHIRE with 11-line HOLOGRAPH POEM, with UNRECORDED TITLE. Quarter green cloth and boards, gilt label on upper cover. Rubbed, extremities slightly worn, label scuffed. A very good copy. Robert Frost's eleven-line holograph poem on front flyleaf is bold and bright. Crane A6.
Item #324958
Inscribed and signed by Robert Frost, with an eleven-line poem in ink holograph on front flyleaf, with unrecorded title ("Winter Will Go") with eight variant textual differences from the final published poem [see 1*-8*]:
- [1*] Winter Will Go/
- [2*] I know that winter death has never tried/
- The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap/
- In long storms an unbroken [3*] four feet deep/
- As measured against maple[4*] birch and oaks[5*]/
- It cannot check the peepers silver croak;/
- And I shall see the snow all go down hill/
- In water of a slender April rill/
- That flashes tail through last years[6*] withered break/
- And dead weeds [7*] like a disappearing snake./
- Nothing will be left white but here a birch [8*]/
- And there a clump of houses with a church. /
- [signed] Robert Frost/ For Carol Kendall."
The published poem appears in two stanzas (on page 90 in this first edition of 'New Hampshire'), with the printed title 'The Onset' (entire poem is printed in two stanzas on page 90); the holograph poem (entitled 'Winter Will Go') is the second (untitled) stanza of 'The Onset,' and the holograph poem has the following differences from the poem as it appears in this collection, as the second (untitled) stanza (on page 90):
- [1* (new title)]: (the holograph poem has title): Winter Will Go (in eleven lines, in one stanza) [second printed stanza of The Onset is not titled (in 12 lines)]
- [2* (omitted line)]: (first printed line of second stanza of The Onset is omitted from holograph poem)
- [3* (revised word)]: (holograph poem, line 3, states): In long storms an unbroken four feet deep // (this line appears in final published poem, second stanza, as line 4): In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
- [4* (different punctuation and revised word)]: (holograph poem, line 4, states): As measured against maple birch and oaks// (this line appears in final published poem, second stanza, as line 5): As measured against maple, birch and oak, [different punctuation and "oaks" changed to "oak"]
- [5* (different punctuation)]: (holograph poem, line 8, states): That flashes tail through last years withered break// (this line appears in final published poem, second stanza, as line 9): That flashes tail through last year's withered break [different punctuation]
- [6* (different punctuation)]: (holograph poem, line 9, states): And dead weeds like a disappearing snake. // (this line appears in final published poem, second stanza, as line 10): And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake. [different punctuation]
- [7* (different punctuation)]: (holograph poem, line 10, states): Nothing will be left white but here a birch // (this line appears in final published poem, second stanza, as line 11): Nothing will be left white but here a birch, [different punctuation]
Eleven lines of the holograph poem differ from the final published poem (as detailed above).
The recipient's name appears on front pastedown, and with recipient's contemporary pictorial bookplate on blank third front flyleaf, with a striking woodcut of a person seated in a large armchair, facing a blazing fireplace, with two open books on floor, and a dog, seated next to the chair, staring at the burning logs. The bookplate design is in the woodcut style of J. J. Lankes.
