Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Frost, Robert. A Boy's Will. David Nutt, London, 1913.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition, second Issue, Binding D, one of 135 copies, signed and numbered by Frost. 50 pp. Softcover, bound in wraps with four-petaled flower motif on the front cover. Unmarked.
Seller: Moroccobound Fine Books, IOBA, Lewis Center, OH, U.S.A.
FROST, Robert. A Boy's Will. David Nutt, London, 1913.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition, signed issue, second issue, binding D. 12mo. 52pp. Cream-colored linen wrappers printed in black. Frederick Baldwin Adams, Jr.'s copy, with his pencil notation about this printing on the front flyleaf, housed in an envelope, in a custom stiff paper and card chemise, with Adams' Rockwell Kent-designed bookplate inside the front cover of the chemise. This is the Signed issue, copy number 123 of 135 numbered copies Signed and numbered by Robert Frost in 1923 on the half-title page. According to *Crane* A2 note: binding D (with rubberstamp "Printed in Great Britain" on verso of title page, as distributed by Dunster House, Cambridge, Mass, 1923. See Crane, p. 7-9, for the complicated publishing history of this title). Adams was an important collector, and friend of Robert Frost.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Robert Frost. A Boy's Will (Signed and Inscribed). David Nutt - UK, 1913.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: A Boy's Will (Signed and Inscribed) 1913 Fine Minus - signed and inscribed Cream Wrappers D binding Signed and Inscribed to friend Wade Van Dore Additional Photos Available Upon Request David Nutt - UK
Seller: D & L Fine Books, Richboro, PA, U.S.A.
Frost, Robert. A Boy's Will. David Nutt, London, 1913.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition, Second Issue, Binding D, No. 126 of 135 copies, signed and numbered by Frost. 50, [2] pp. 1 vols. Sm 8vo. This issue offered by Louis Cohn of House of Books when he bought the remains of Dunster House Bookshop from Maurice Firuski. Crane A2, Binding D First Edition, Second Issue, Binding D, No. 126 of 135 copies, signed and numbered by Frost.
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Frost, Robert.. A Boy's Will.. David Nutt, 1913.
Price: US$4500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: A Fine copy in dull white printed wrappers, with stamp "printed in Great Britain" on the copyright page. Binding D, with four-petaled flower motif on the front cover. SIGNED by Frost under his name on the title page and numbered "99". 50pp. A clean unworn copy. Q14889
Seller: Compass Rose Books, ABAA-ILAB, Kensington, CA, U.S.A.
Frost, Robert. A BOY'S WILL. Inscribed. David Nutt, London, 1913.
Price: US$7900.00 + shipping
Description: 1st Edition. Signed by Author. Presentation Copy of the First Edition of the author's first book, preceded only by the legendary Twilight [1894] of which only one copy is known. Neatly & succinctly inscribed in blue-black fountain pen on the half-title to friend & admirer George Crosbie. "For Crosbie / from / Frost". Most of Crosbie's Frost collection was given to Blair Academy [new Jersey] in 1988. A fine copy in the original cream linen wrappers, a bit dusty but otherwise quite nice. Binding D [with 4-petaled flowers]. 1 of only 686 copies of 1000 printed, with "Printed in Great Britain" rubber-stamped on the copyright page. Custom cloth case with chemise. Clymer and Green p. 20; Crane A2.
Seller: TBCL The Book Collector's Library, Montreal, QC, Canada
Price: US$12500.00 + shipping
Description: This is an elusive prize - the first edition, first printing, first binding state of Robert Frosts first published book, signed by the author.First published in England in 1913, the publication history of A Boys Will is complicated by the fact that the reported 1,000 first edition sheets saw two issues in four variant bindings. These many iterations were bound and sold over a period of three decades, owing in part to the bankruptcy of the original publisher (Nutt) and sale of remaining first edition sheets during the subsequent liquidation. It is estimated that "no more than 350 copies" and plausibly as few as 284 were issued thus, in the publishers original shiny bronzed brown pebbled cloth "used to bind the first books that appeared." Known to Frost bibliographers and collectors as "binding A", these copies "were bound by the Leighton-Straker Bookbinding Co. before 1 April 1913." Rendering this copy of "binding A" even more compelling than scarcity warrants is Frosts signature "Robert Frost" on the upper right of the half-title page. Ink, nib, and hand all indicate that Frosts signature is contemporaneous.Condition of the book is good plus sound, complete, and unrestored, though showing some befittingly venerable signs of age. The bronzed brown cloth binding is tight, clean, and retains its hue and sheen on the majority of both covers. The spine is sunned, as are the inner edges of both boards adjacent to the hinges. There is lesser toning to a strip of the upper rear cover and the fore edges. The front cover gilt print and decoration remains bright. The cloth shows minor shelf wear to extremities, most notably some fraying at the spine ends. The first issue contents are marked only by the author; we find no previous ownership marks. Spotting is intermittent and light within, more evident on the untrimmed page edges. The signature connecting the half title and title page leaves remains uncut.Iconic American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), the quintessential poetic voice of New England, was actually born in San Francisco and first published in England. When Frost was eleven, his newly widowed mother moved east to New Hampshire. There Frost swiftly found his poetic voice, infused by New England scenes and sensibilities. Promising as both a student and writer, Frost nonetheless dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard, supporting himself and a young family by teaching and farming. Ironically, a 1912 move to England with his wife and children "the place to be poor and to write poems" catalyzed Frosts recognition as a noteworthy American poet. The manuscript of A Boys Will was completed in England and published by David Nutt in April 1913. "Yeats pronounced the poetry "the best written in America for some time" and Frost received "two extraordinary tributes in the Nation and the Chicago Dial and a superb review in the Academy."" (ANB) A convocation of critical recognition, introduction to other writers, and creative energy supported the English publication of Frosts second book, North of Boston, in 1914, after which "Frosts reputation as a leading poet had been firmly established in England, and Henry Holt of New York had agreed to publish his books in America." Accolades met Frosts return to America at the end of 1914. By 1917 a move to Amherst "launched him on the twofold career he would lead for the rest of his life: teaching whatever "subjects" he pleased at a congenial college and "barding around," his term for "saying" poems in a conversational performance." (ANB) In 1924 he won the first of an eventual four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry (1931, 1937, and 1943). Frost spent his final decades as "the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century" with a host of academic and civic honors to his credit. Two years before his death he became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961). Reference: Crane A2
Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
FROST, Robert. A BOY'S WILL. David Nutt, London, 1913.
Price: US$62500.00 + shipping
Description: Original bronzed brown pebbled cloth, gilt-lettered on the front cover. Crane A2: First Issue, Binding A of Frost's first book. Less than 350 copies of the first issue in the first binding were issued, from a total edition of 1,000. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "To William Stockhausen/this a first of my first/Robert Frost/and pleased to meet it/again so fresh after all/these years/Dec 26 1960." In addition on the front endpaper is the pencil ownership signature of Henry James, Jr. with a 55 East 65th St. address. According to the SOTHEBY PARKE BERNET catalog of THE WILLIAM E. STOCKHAUSEN COLLECTION, 1974, "this copy is most certainly from the library of Henry James the novelist. The owner name is in the hand of his nephew Henry James but appears to be an identification of source. The nephew inherited a large part of the novelist's library on the author's death in 1916. He never used either Jr. or Henry James II but his uncle did use the latter. Since this is evidently not his own ownership inscription it appears to be more than likely that he wrote it to identify those books which had come from his uncle's library." A copy of NORTH OF BOSTON also inscribed to Stockhausen had a similar ownership signature. This copy of A BOY'S WILL was last on the market in 1977, and a letter from the well-known bookseller to the buyer is laid in. Housed in a cloth chemise and handsome brown morocco-backed cloth slipcase. A spectacular copy with an exceptional association
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.