Catholic Anthology. ELIOT, T. S. (contrib.); Ezra Pound (ed.).

First edition, one of 500 copies, which Pound edited for the primary purpose of "getting sixteen pages of Eliot into print at once" (cited in Norman, p. 181). Besides from a 1910 Harvard graduation pamphlet that printed an ode by Eliot, this poetical anthology marks the first appearance in book form of any of Eliot's verse and includes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". The work also contains Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady", "The Boston Even Transcript", "Hysteria" (first printed here), and "Miss Helen Slingsby" (i.e. "Aunt Helen"), all of which were reprinted in Eliot's first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917). Pound spoke of his "satisfaction of getting Eliot's poems into print between covers" (cited in Moody, p. 320) for the first time through the Catholic Anthology. Pound also edited it as a challenge to Some Imagist Poets (1915) and its editors H.D. and Richard Aldington. Pound's own contributions comprise "Contemporania" and "Poem (Abbreviated from the Conversation with Mr. T.E.H.)". In lieu of a preface, the volume opens with Yeats's "The Scholars" as a form of mission statement for a new generation of poets. Other contributors include Harold Monro, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, and John Rodker. The front free endpaper has an ink gift inscription, "Winsome Milner from C.B. 1928". This is likely the notable New Zealand poet Charles Brasch (1909-1973) gifting the book to Milner, his Waitaki headmaster's daughter, with whom he was at the time infatuated. Octavo. Original buff boards, spine and front cover lettered in black, Vorticist design by Dorothy Shakespear in black on covers, fore and bottom edges uncut. Housed in custom black cloth folding box. Some uneven toning to spine and front, light superficial rubbing to ends and corners, some minor foxing to early and late leaves, otherwise sound and clean: a very good copy.