Books

First collected edition, first printing, one of 788 copies. Following Faber's individual wrappered issues of the four parts in 1940 and 1941, this American edition marks the first time the poems are published together under the title by which they are now known. It is also the first hardback edition. Two printings were produced prior to publication. The first printing constituted 4,165 copies, but the poor quality of the printing led to the publisher destroying all but 788, which were sent out to retain copyright while the work was reprinted. This copy has the relevant point for the first printing: "first American edition" printed on the title page verso. The relatively small number of copies of the first printing which survived means that the book is now scarce in any condition. "Four Quartets (1943), as the suite of four poems was titled (Eliot at one point considered calling them the 'Kensington quartets'), for a time displaced The Waste Land as Eliot's most celebrated work. The British public responded especially to the topical references in the wartime poems and to the tone of Eliot's public meditation on a shared disaster" (ODNB). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket, designed by E. McKnight Kauffer. Bookplate of the businessman Donald G. Drapkin (1948-2016) to front pastedown; bookseller's ticket to rear pastedown. Faint damp stains to cloth and gutter at foot of spine; corresponding warping to dust jacket, lightly toned as usual, a few tiny nicks and chips to extremities, unclipped: a very good copy in very good jacket. Gallup A43.a.

Four Quartets is a set of four poems written by T.S. Eliot that were published individually over six years - Burnt Norton (1936), East Coker (1940), The Dry Salvages (1941), and Little Gidding (1942). These poems are meditative reflections on the themes of time, perspective, humanity, and the divine.