WAR IS KIND. Drawings by Will Bradley

1899. [Will Bradley's masterpiece] New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1899. Original grey paper boards pictorially decorated in black, with spine label.

First Edition of Crane's eighth book, his second volume of verse (some of which had appeared in the 1896 Roycroft Quarterly as "A Souvenir and A Medley"). Crane wrote these poems in Havana, during his nine-month separation from Cora; he called them his "Intrigue" poems, as in general they concerned his love-conflict between Cora (then being foreclosed upon in England) and Lily Brandon Munroe. Mainly interesting as biography, these poems have been ignored or slighted by Crane's biographers and critics. They are memorable not as poetry but as poetic documents of personal feeling [Stallman]. But today this book is sought just as much for Will Bradley's book design and illustrations: the book is now regarded as typifying the best of American book design of the 1890s. The book was "arranged and printed by Will Bradley," with the text and his many illustrations on the heavy grey paper he chose for this book. This is a very good copy: the front joint is cracked but glued tight, and the very top of the spine is eroded, but the browning of the spine is less than usual; remarkably, the leaves are still unopened. Williams & Starrett 20; Blanck 4083.