In Flanders Fields and Other Poems. - 1919

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,, 1919. First American edition, first printing, issued simultaneously with the Canadian edition. The first appearance of this poem in book form. This copy is from the library of the noted American bibliophile and lawyer Frank J. Hogan, with his bookplate on the front pastedown. John McCrae (1872-1918) was a Canadian physician who served as a medical officer first in the Boer War and later during the second battle of Ypres. "In Flanders Fields", McCrae's most famous First World War poem, printed here posthumously, was originally published in Punch magazine in December 1915. It became popular almost immediately upon publication and was used to inspire young people in the US to enlist. Its images have since become "part of the collective memory of war" (Giddings, p. 55). Octavo. Original blue straight-grain cloth, lettered in gilt on spine and within decorative oval frame on front cover, frame to front cover blocked in blind, top edge gilt, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom blue quarter morocco cloth slipcase, lettered in gilt on spine, with matching chemise. Frontispiece with tissue guard, 3 plates including 2 facsimiles, one of an autograph copy of the poem and one of a sketch by the author. Bookseller's ticket of Peabody's, Baltimore to front pastedown. Spine ends bumped, light rubbing to extremities, faint splash marks to edges; shallow chipping to jacket edges, short closed tear to foot of rear flap fold, a few small tape repairs to verso, jacket flaps without price as issued: a near-fine copy in very good jacket. Robert Giddings, The War Poets, 1988.