Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
MACNEICE, Louis (1907-1963). Blind Fireworks. Victor Gollancz, London, 1929.
Price: US$251.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Impression of MacNeice's first book, collecting forty-four poems, written while he was still a student at Oxford. One of 1,000 copies printed. Crown 8vo (185 x 121mm): 80pp. Publisher's black cloth (second-issue binding; first was cream canvas), verdigris green paper spine label printed in black. Neat owner's signature in pencil, dated 1933, to front fly-leaf. Wanting the dust jacket. Fly leaves toned, label rubbed (partially affecting two letters), but an excellent, virtually pristine example. Hayward 342. Armitage & Clark A1 (citing only the black cloth binding). Dedicated to Giovanna Marie Therese Babette Ezra, stepdaughter of an Oxford scholar, who MacNeice married in 1930. "MacNeice's critical reputation has steadily risen in the last two decades. From being regarded as something of a flashy rhetorician, he has come to be seen as one of the major twentieth-century poets writing in English." (Literary Encyclopedia) In the 1930s, MacNeice was widely considered a junior member of the Auden-Spender-Day Lewis group: MacNeice and Spender were friends at Oxford, serving as joint editors of Oxford Poetry, and he collaborated with Auden on Letters from Iceland, in 1937. In the brief foreword to this undergraduate collection, he compares its poems to Chinese fireworks, "artificial and yet random; because they go quickly through their antics against an important background, and fall and go out quickly." N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).
Seller: Fine Editions Ltd, Lancaster, PA, U.S.A.
MACNEICE, Louis. Blind Fireworks. Victor Gollancz, London, 1929.
Price: US$320.82 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Cream cloth with paper pastedown title on spine. Mild foxing on endpapers, but clean tight, bright copy of this first printing. First collection of poet's work. 80pp scarce.
Seller: valley books, Holton, SUFFO, United Kingdom
MacNEICE Louis. Blind Fireworks. , 1929.
Price: US$346.48 + shipping
Description: First edition. 8vo. Original cream cloth, white label to spine printed in black. London, Gollancz. A nice copy of MacNeince's first book, from the library of the British poet, publisher and academic Jon Stallworthy (1935-2014), with some marginal notes in his hand. Along with a letter dated 27th March 1987, from the daughter of Victor Gollancz, Livia Gollancz the then chairman of the publishing house, disclosing some information about the limited archive material held by them on this book. Stallworthy has used this piece of paper for more of his annotations. A very good copy, with a little wear to edges.
Seller: Maggs Bros. Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, BA, London, United Kingdom
MacNEICE, Louis.. Blind Fireworks.. Victor Gollancz, London., 1929.
Price: US$866.20 + shipping
Description: First edition. First issue in unlettered cream cloth with green title label on the spine - there was subsequently an issue in black cloth. Small octavo. 80 pages. 1000 copies were printed. The author's first book, containing forty-four poems. ''I have always admired the Chinese because they invented gunpowder only to make fireworks with it. I have called this collection Blind Fireworks because they are artificial and yet random; because they go quickly through their antics against an important background, and fall and go out quickly.'' (from the Foreword).Free endpapers partially tanned. Fore-edge spotted. Very good indeed in very good indeed dustwrapper tanned at the spine.
Seller: Peter Ellis, Bookseller, ABA, ILAB, London, United Kingdom
MACNEICE, Louis. Blind Fireworks. Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1929.
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: 8vo, original canvas boards, printed paper label on spine, dust jacket. A very fine copy. First edition, first issue, of MacNeice's first book, in the first issue binding of cream cloth. One of 1000 copies printed, and published while MacNeice was a student at Oxford. Armitage & Clark A1; Hayward 342.
Seller: James S. Jaffe Rare Books, LLC, ABAA, Deep River, CT, U.S.A.