Charles Bossom
 CLARE, John & TIBBLE, J W (ed & intro) The Midsummer Cushion , Northumberland: Mid Northumberland Arts group with Carcanet, 1979.First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo 0856352500 With an introduction by Anne Tibble. Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Black cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. Slight wear to edges. No ownership inscription.xvi, (6) 519 pages clean and tight. Clare records that it was "a very old custom among villagers in summer time to stick a piece of greensward full of field flowers & place it as an ornament in their cottages which ornaments are called Midsummer Cushions". This "cottage custom" suggested the title to him for this collection. The text of the poems has been prepared from Clare's own fair-copy in Peterborough Museum (MS A54), and is, as far as possible, an exact transcription of his own punctuation and spelling. Every effort has been taken to ensure that the reader is able to get back to the authentic voice of Clare. Here, for the first time, is the book which John Clare himself wanted to publish in 1832, but for which he could not find a sufficient number of subscribers. It is an irony which Clare would have appreciated that it took almost 150 years to bring out the book. Almost a third of the book's 361 poems are now published for the first time. We should now be in a position to give Clare the recognition he desired -- not as a peasant phenomenon - but as our foremost naturalist poet in the tradition of "national" poetry in which the English countryside is rendered with almost obsessive accuracy. (Book ref. 124649) £39.95 The payment methods accepted by the seller, Charles Bossom , are shown in the right-hand column. |
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