Ruins and Visions

First edition. Thin 8vo. 84pp. Green linen cloth, lettered in gilt to spine; untrimmed fore-edges. In the orange dust wrapper, printed in navy blue (priced 6s. net to front flap).

Ex Libris J.B. Priestley bookplate to front pastedown. As Literary Councillor to the fledgling UNESCO in 1945, Spender recruited J.B. Priestley for its inaugural series of lectures on matters cultural, while both authors feature as "crypto-communist" and "fellow travellers" in Orwell's infamous blacklist offer to the Foreign Office propaganda unit. Tanning to dustwrapper spine, else Fine.

A collection of 28 poems divided into four entities, titled "A Separation", "Ironies of War", "Deaths" and "Visions", and all informed by the author's wartime experiences serving in the Fire Service.

[Connolly, The Modern Movement, No. 91; Kulkarni A17]