?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
"A POEM'S MEANING IS THE MEANING IT HAS TO THE READER" HOUSMAN, A.E. Two items: A Shropshire Lad. Signed on the half-title * Autograph Letter Signed. The letter, to bookseller Isidore R. Brussel, agreeing to sign A Shropshire Lad, declining to sign other items or to explain the meaning of any poem. Small 8vo, 1 1/2 pages, written on recto and verso of a single sheet; horizontal fold. With the original envelope. The book, additionally inscribed and signed by children's author Edith Nesbit on front free endpaper. Small 8vo, 1/4 vellum, wrappers over boards, label on spine; bookplate on front pastedown, faint scattered foxing throughout; cloth clamshell case. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co., 1896; inscriptions: Np, nd; [Street, Somerset], 27 June 1933
The letter: ". . . I shall be pleased to sign your friend's copy of A Shropshire Lad . . . ." "I always refuse to explain the meaning of poems, on the ground that a poem's meaning is the meaning it has to the reader."
