John Masefield (1878-1967) British, (5) Books (1910-1967). 

Size: (largest) 10 X 7 X 1 in. 

This lot consists of five books by John Masefield, an twentieth century English poet and writer. The books are A Book of Discoveries from 1910, King Cole from 1921, The Wanderer of Liverpool, a limited and numbered first edition from 1930, A Tale of Troy 1932, and In Glad Thanksgiving from 1967, the year he died. 

John Masefield (1878 - 1967) was British Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967, during which time he lived in Oxfordshire, near Abingdon-on-Thames. After an unhappy education at the King's School in Warwick, he spent several years living on board a ship and was awed by the beauty of nature. In 1895 he jumped ship in New York and travelled throughout the countryside. For several months he lived as a vagrant, drifting between odd jobs, before he returned to New York City and found work as a barkeep’s assistant and at a carpet factory in Yonkers, then he returned to England, and by 1902, his poems were being published, including Sea Fever, one of his most well-known poems. When the First World War began in 1914, Masefield was old enough to be exempt from military service, but he joined the staff of a British hospital for French soldiers and later published an account of his experiences. He was invited to the United States on a three-month lecture tour, then returned to England and was allowed to write a book about the failure of the Allied effort in the Dardanelles that might be used in the United States to counter German propaganda there. The resulting work, Gallipoli, was a success, and he returned to America in 1918 to speak to American soldiers waiting to be sent to Europe; these speaking engagements were very successful. The first edition of his Collected Poems came out in 1923 and sold about 80,000 copies, then he turned away from long poems and back to novels. In this same period he wrote a large number of dramatic pieces. Most of these were based on Christian themes, and Masefield, to his amazement, encountered a ban on the performance of plays on biblical subjects that went back to the Reformation and had been revived a generation earlier to prevent production of Oscar Wilde's Salome. However, a compromise was reached, and in 1928 his The Coming of Christ was the first play to be performed in an English cathedral since the Middle Ages. Masefield was appointed Poet Laureate in 1930, and the only person to hold the office for a longer time was Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 

A Book of Discoveries is a first edition published in London by Wells Gardner Darton and illustrated by Gordon Browne, the son of Hablot K. Browne, who illustrated book for Dickens. The book has an illustrated spine, front cover, and rear cover, endpapers decorated to please a child’s palate, a half-title, then an illustrated frontis, a tissue guard, red and black lettering on the title page, the copyright page is dated 1910, which makes this a first edition, per WorldCat, then a page dedicated to Judith, who was Masefield’s daughter, two pages of Contents (ix - x), a List of Illustrations on xi and xii, 354 pages of text, and 10 pages of illustrated ads at the rear. The book measures 8 1/4 x 6 inches wide and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and clean pages and text, and the illustrations are very clean as well. There is light browning on the endpapers and at the vertical edges of some of the ads in back, light bumps at the heel and crown of the spine, and overall an attractive copy of this book about the boating adventures of two boys in the village of Water Orton in Warwickshire, where they learn about the history of ancient Britons through exploring the countryside with their friend Mr. Hampden. 

King Cole was a story written by John Masefield in 1921 and it follows the life of a man named Cole, who becomes the king of a small island in the South Pacific. He is a sailor who has spent most of his life at sea, but after a shipwreck, he finds himself on this island, where he is welcomed by the inhabitants. As he gets to know the island and its people, Cole realizes that he has the opportunity to become their leader and improve their way of life. He sets out to build a new society, one based on cooperation and mutual respect. Over time, Cole becomes a beloved figure on the island, and his leadership style inspires the people to work together for the common good. However, Cole's peaceful reign is threatened when a group of outsiders arrives on the island. They are greedy and seek to exploit the island's resources for their own gain. Cole must now use all of his skills and wisdom to protect his people and maintain the peace he has worked so hard to establish. The book is quarter-bound, with paper labels on the spine and front cover, blank endpapers, a half-title, then a list of books written by Masefield, the title page says the book comes with drawings in black and white by Judith Masefield, who was the daughter of John Masefield, the book was published in New York by Macmillan Company in 1921, and the book is a first edition because there is just a single date on the copyright page and title page and the dates match. (See Bill McBride’s A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions.) The book is dedicated to John Masefield’s wife, there are 87 pages of text, and the last page shows a drawing of a flute player with animals sitting nearby. The book measures 7 3/4 x 5 3/8 inches wide and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and clean pages and text. There are light bumps on the heel and faint rubbing at the crown of the spine and tape shadows on the front and rear flyleaves and that’s it. 

The Wanderer of Liverpool is a beautiful limited and numbered first edition from 1930, it is the first book published by Masefield after he became Poet Laureate, and it speaks to his lifelong love of tall ships - the Wanderer was a four-masted ship built in Liverpool in 1890 to ’91. It is the story of the ship which inspired one of Masefield's poems, from her building to launching in  in 1891 and fifteen years on the sea, despite her reputation as an unlucky ship. The book is half-bound, with gilt lettering on the spine, emerald green covers, probably to echo the colors of the sea, blank endpapers with the bookplate of April Pitts on the front-paste-down, the limitation page says this is #4 of 350 copies, which is very early in the print run and usually means the book is of higher quality, and the limitation page is signed by Masefield with his full name. (We’ve seen copies that are only signed with his last name.) There’s a half-title, then a beautiful colored frontis of the Wanderer, the title page says the book was published in New York by the Macmillan Company, the copyright page is dated 1930, it has a three-page list of Illustrations (vii - ix), 139 pages of text and three large fold-out diagrams of the Wanderer at the rear (between pages 138 and 139). The book measures 10 x 7 inches wide and is in great condition. The binding is tight, the covers are bright, the pages and text are very clean, and the fold-out diagrams at the rear are very clean too. There are small white flecks on the front cover, light shadows on the gutters in front and back, and that’s it. The slipcase has faint brown spots and a one-inch loss at the top of the slipcase. (We’ve included the one-inch piece in a plastic bag if you’d like to repair the top of the slipcase.) 

A Tale of Troy is a first American edition that was written by Masefield in 1932, it recaptures the Iliad, with the rape of Helen, Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia for a favorable wind, and the wily Odysseus gate-crashing the walls of Troy with the wooden horse. The book has gilt lettering on the spine and front cover, blank endpapers with “Janet E Henry” inscribed on the front flyleaf as well as a pencilled note which says “1st American ed”, then a half-title, the title page says the book was published by Macmillan in New York in 1932, the copyright page is dated 1932 and there is just a single date on the title page and copyright page and the dates match, which makes this a first edition. (See Bill McBride’s A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions.) The book is dedicated to Masefield’s wife, then he thanks the people who read the book on Midsummer Night in Masefield’s presence, there is one page of Contents, 46 pages of text, and a dust jacket to go with the book: the dust jacket has the the original price of $1.50 at the bottom of the front flap of the dust jacket. The book measures 8 3/4 x 6 inches wide and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and clean pages and text. There are faint bumps on the heels and faint rubbing on the crown of the spine, faint browning on the front and rear endpapers, and the dust jacket has chips on the spine, nicks at the top edges, and a one-inch tear at the bottom of the rear panel. 

The last book is In Glad Thanksgiving, which was also Masefield’s last published book - a collection of poems published just a few months before he died in 1967. The book is half-bound, with gilt lettering on the spine and lime green boards, blank endpapers, a half-title, then a list of works by Masefield, the title page says the book was published in New York by Macmillan, and  the copyright page says the book was first published in 1967, which makes this a first American edition. It has one page of Contents, 90 pages of text, and a dust jacket. The book measures 8 5/8 x 5 7/8 inches wide and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and clean pages and text. There are small nicks at the top of the front flyleaf, the dust jacket is price clipped on the front panel, there are small tears on the front of the dust jacket, small nicks and light soiling on the back panel, and still an attractive copy of Masefield’s last work.