THE ROMAN QUARRY AND OTHER SEQUENCES

First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Publisher's original red cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in the original plain acetate dustwrapper. With a black and white frontispiece and six plates throughout. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth a touch faded to the spine. The contentsare clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the original acetate dustwrapper, which has a chip with loss at the head of the spine.

A collection of 10 short writings by modernist poet David Jones (1895-1974), compiled and published posthumously by the editors Harman Grisewood and René Hague (who also passed away pre-publication). The book is divided into four parts and supplemented with additional commentary by Hague towards the rear. The fourth and final section, 'The Book of Balaam's Ass', was an abandoned experimental project Jones had worked on before his landmark epic poem 'The Anathemata' (1952). Fragments of the text first appeared in print in 'The Sleeping Lord' (1974), the last of Jones' works released during his lifetime.