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WILSON, JEAN MOORCROFT: : ISAAC ROSENBERG POET & PAINTER: A BIOGRAPHY BY

LONDON.CECIL WOOLF,1975.

ISBN 0900821213.

UK,8vo HB+protected dw/dj,1st edn. FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj. Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,monochrome pictorial artwork by Bill Botten,illustrated front panel+spine of dw/dj with red+black lettering to front and red+b/w lettering to spine; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present. Book is lightly cocked.Top edges lightly toned but still generally bright and clean,fore-edges with faint,minimal and sporadic foxing/spotting contained to it's top 1/3rd otherwise still bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean, solid and sound - near pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners, appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright, crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp, blocked gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate b/w illustrated endpapers - 'The Menin Road' by Paul Nash,courtesy IWM.UK,8vo HB+ protected dw/dj,1st edn,3-220pp [paginated] includes contents list/table with illustrations list/table to it's recto,a preface with acknowledgements and author's note to it's recto,9 chapters includes Conclusion,32pp contemporary b/w illustrations and b/w scenic and auto+biographical photographs in 2 blocks of 16pp apiece,between pp76/7 and pp156/7 and b/w illustrations and b/w map of Western Front interspersed in the text; plus [unpaginated] half-title page, subject's self-portrait colour illustrated frntistitle page,and a dedication with blank recto. Isaac Rosenberg,who was killed on the Somme a few weeks before the armistice in 1918,was perhaps the finest poet of his war generation. T.S. Eliot recognised him as 'one of the greatest poets we have had'. The son of poor Lithuanian immigrants Rosenberg began to draw and compose poetry while still a child.'My circumstances have not been very favourable for artistic production,' he wrote to Laurence Binyon, 'but generally I am optimistic, I suppose because I am young and do not properly realise the difficulties.' Lack of education and ill health were only two of his problems.But persisting in the face of difficulties that would have discouraged most young men he produced a remarkable body of work. In this highly readable and exhaustively researched biography,Dr Jean Moorcroft Wilson approaches her subject with sympathetic understanding and penetrating criticism. Rosenberg was a strange mixture of extreme modesty and assertiveness,humour and morbidity, uncouthness and charm,self-pity and strength of character.He was invariably absent-minded.One day he rushed into a friend's studio.'I have got a poem here,' he exclaimed rummaging in his pockets.'I think it is a good idea' - the search in his pockets getting more frantic - then disappointedly,'I must have forgotten it somewhere' - and then he collapsed,shaking with laughter,'Great snakes! but I have forgotten to write it!' Tracing his odyssey from a Bristol slum to the literary and artistic world of Edwardian London Jean Wilson explores Rosenberg's tortuous development as a poet and painter against the background of the time and we catch a glimpse of the many contemporary writers and artists he knew,including Ezra Pound,Stanley Spencer,Mark Gertler and Edward Marsh.In the closing chapters the author recalls Rosenberg's life as an unsoldierly soldier on the Western Front and relates his harrowing experiences there to the writing of his finest work.Like Rupert Brooke, Wilfrid Owen and Charles Hamilton Sorley,his tragic death leaves us with a sense of unfulfilled genius.But Rosenberg made his own unique contribution in his lifetime: he is the poet of the obscenity of war. For this critical biography,Dr Wilson has had the fullest co-operation of Rosenberg's family, access to much private and unpublished material and has interviewed many of those who knew the poet-painter.From the factual record,as from the poems and letters quoted and the many remarkable drawings and paintings by Rosenberg reproduced here along with the photographs,emerges a memorable portrait of a greatly talented,cross-grained young man. Of these two [biographies] of Rosenberg,which inevitably cover much of the same ground,Jean Moorcroft Wilson's is decidely the better.It contains the fuller selection of pictures as well.Dr Wilson tells the story in a straightforward way,and makes a successful effort to set our fairly Rosenberg's by no means easy character. - Anthony Powell,The Daily Telegraph. Please contact seller,because of the weight/value of this item for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page! ** N.B. 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UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.
Not SIGNED.

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