1914 AND OTHER POEMS by Brooke, Rupert - 1915

1915. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1915. Original blue-black cloth with printed spine label. First Edition of Rupert Brooke's second and last volume of verse, which consisted of 1000 copies. Included is the first book appearance of his best-known poem, "The Soldier," which begins If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. This volume was published by Rupert Brooke's Rugby classmate Frank Sidgwick in June 1915, less than two months after Brooke had died in the war (at age 27). He was buried not in some corner of a foreign field, but on the Greek island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea: en route to Gallipoli with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, he died of sepsis, purportedly from an infected mosquito bite. (Rupert's brother William was killed at Loos just seven weeks later.) This is a fine copy (spine label slightly tanned as usual); this copy still has the unused extra spine label, which was tipped in at the back of every copy. Keynes 6. Armorial bookplate of David C. Titus.