Collected Poems.

London: William Heinemann Ltd,, 1923. Signed limited edition, number 429 of 530 copies, signed by the author, together with a couplet ("Yet, when the Trinity exults, oh, then, / What bliss to be, altho' despised of men.") on the limitation page. The collection includes "Sea-Fever" and "Cargoes", two poems which a subsequent Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, stated would be "remembered as long as the language lasts". Masefield was approached by his publishers about a single volume of collected poetry and, hesitant about killing sales of individual titles, he asked Thomas Hardy for advice. Hardy responded that "the more editions there are the better", and encouraged Masefield to trust his publishers (see Purdy & Millgate). The standard trade edition was a phenomenal success with the first impression of 10,000 copies selling out during the first week of publication. It has been stated that 100,000 copies sold in the first seven years of publication (Buchan). Each copy in the limited edition included one of eight couplets. Six of the couplets form a single poem, commencing "On these three things a poet must depend", and the present copy presents the final two lines of the poem. The complete poem exists in manuscript in the Masefield papers at the University of Texas, and was first published in Errington's bibliography of Masefield. Octavo. Original tan cloth, spine lettered in gilt and to navy blue morocco label, top edge gilt. With dust jacket. Frontispiece photogravure portrait. Browning to endpapers; dust jacket toned with some minor loss to top edge, original publication price on spine: a fine copy in a very good jacket. Errington A71(bb). Purdy & Millgate, Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, VI, 1987, p. 189; Buchan, ed., Letters to Reyna, 1983, p. 26.