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89 NICOLSON, Harold. Jeanne de Henaut. London: published privately for the author by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1924 One of the rarest Hogarth Press books First edition, sole impression, one of just 55 copies printed for the author and distributed by him as gifts, this copy inscribed on the title page, “Eddie [Marsh] from Harold Dec. 1924”. Eddie Marsh (1872–1953), like Nicolson, combined a literary life with work as a high-level civil servant. They first met in 1909 at St Petersburg when Nicolson’s father was ambassador there. Marsh was private secretary to Winston Churchill, as well as being a patron and editor to poets of the Georgian school, with his Georgian Poetry series (in which Nicolson’s wife Vita Sackville-West was one of the two women included). He was also the literary executor of Rupert Brooke. Octavo. Single quire sewn into the original tangerine wrappers, white paper title label to front wrapper printed in black. Housed in a custom green cloth chemise. Later pencil inscription on title page, “Colin from John, June 1958”. A near-fine copy with brightly coloured wrappers, some faint dust soiling to rear, a few trivial nicks to extremities. ¶ Woolmer 50. £7,500 [157306] 90 NOGUCHI, Yone. From the Eastern Sea. London: at the Unicorn, 1903 “Only the strongest hands are able to shake London big and heavy” First edition in English, with a long inscription by the author on the front free endpaper, signed “Yone Noguchi / Kamakura, Japan / July 1909” and with his personal monogram “Y.N.” stamped in blue on the same page. Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) was the first Japanese writer to publish poetry in English, and From the Eastern Sea was the first
book he printed in England after arriving in the country the previous year. Noguchi’s inscription here is filled with details about the book’s publication, as well as his poetic ambitions, and feelings on arriving in London for the first time: “I was sick, tired and much discouraged with my poetical work when I left America for England in 1902. Lady Collin Campbell said to me ‘Only the strongest hands are able to shake London big and heavy.’ Doubtless she spoke it with no reference to my ability; however, I was very sad then”. It was not long before Noguchi began causing tremors in London with From the Eastern Sea , which was first published in a diminutive edition in Japanese, printed at the poet’s expense; it cost him “some three pounds, which I had kept aside for the purpose of two days in Paris at Christmas” (Noguchi, p. 128), but the result was an instant triumph. In the present inscription, he describes his own shock at the book’s reception: “I brought out myself a sixteen-page paper-covered pamphlet in Japanese in January, 1903; and I dare say its immediate success was something unexpected”. The present edition, in English, enlarged from the original with several new poems, followed shortly afterwards, and its popularity put him in touch with writers as diverse as Laurence Binyon, Arthur Symons, George Bernard Shaw, and William Michael Rossetti. Though neglected somewhat since his death in 1947, Noguchi was a significant influence on the modernist poets. “It was he who first proposed American poets should take up haiku, and advised W. B. Yeats to study the Japanese Noh drama” (Marx, vol. 1, p. 23). Noguchi also made important contributions to Japanese literature, translating the poetry of Whitman, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, and Joyce into Japanese for the first time. Octavo. Original pink cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt and decorated in green, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Bookseller’s ticket and shelf label to front pastedown. Cloth a little rubbed and faded, spine somewhat toned, spot of wear to head of spine, small bumps to corners, light foxing to endpapers, contents otherwise clean. A very good copy. ¶ Edward Marx, Yone Noguchi: The Stream of Fate , 2 vols, 2019; Yone Noguchi, The Story of Yone Noguchi , 1915. £1,250 [158180]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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