CONTAINING THE AUTHOR'S BEST-KNOWN POEM.

CHAPPELL, Henry; Sir Herbert WARREN [Intro.] ~ The Day and Other Poems.

FIRST UK PRINTING. John Lane, the Bodley Head, London: 1918.

Small 8vo., navy blue cloth lettered in gilt to upper cover and spine; complete with the photographic dustwrapper (priced 2/6 net to upper panel); with a black and white frontis portrait of the author replicating the dustwrapper, together with his facsimile signature; outer edges of text block untrimmed; THE BOOK a lovely, very good ++ copy, slightly bumped to spine tips, faintly and evening toned throughout, with some very mild spotting mostly affecting the outer margins and endleaves; previous bookseller's embossed stamp to ffep; THE WRAPPER, seldom found, has a couple of stains and some chipping to the spine tips; also very good. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. FIRST [SOLE] UK PRINTING. Two early bookmarks are also loosely inserted. A collection of poems by Henry Chappell (1874-1937), the English poet who later became known as the 'porter poet' due to his job as a porter on Bath Spa Station. The son of a shopkeeper, he led a relatively quiet life in Bath with his wife and two daughters, but was shot to fame overnight with the publication of his poem 'The Day', which he had penned upon the announcement of the outbreak of the First World War. Originally published in the London Daily Express on 22nd August 1914, it went on (as Sir Herbert Warren notes in his introduction here to be “reprinted in every paper in America” as well as in “Canada, The Cape and Australia”. It was his best-known poem for the rest of his life. "You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day, And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart and coward all..." Very scarce thus.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good ++
JACKET: Very Good