SQUIRE, J. C. (editor) — THE LONDON MERCURY

London 1st edition pp. 768. Thick 4to. Bound in brown cloth, top edge gilt with leather spine label. Boards bumped, scuffed, & moderately soiled; contents slightly age-toned; else binding tight and contents clean. Overall, very good condition. Sir John Collings Squires (1884-1958) was a poet and man of letters, who undertook the editorship of this important literary magazine, and remained in that position until 1934. In 1939 it was incorporated into 'Life and Letters'. This volume contains the first six issues of this periodical. According to Squires: 'In our pages will be found original verse and prose in a volume not possible in a weekly paper; full-length literary essays such as have been found only in politico-literary monthlies; a critical survey of books of all kinds recently published; and other 'features'....' He certainly attracted a panoply of the finest English language writers then living, including Thomas Hardy, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Walter de la Mare, Alice Meynell, James Elroy Flecker, Aldous Huxley, Hillaire Belloc, Robert Graves, G. K. Chesterton, Edmund Blunden, Max Beerbohm, and Edmund Gosse; all of whom contributed unique poems, articles or criticisms to these first six issues. Not exactly a pretty book, but sturdy and easily handled - chock-full of the best four pounds of literature one is likely to encounter.