1880 Scarce Edition The City of Dreadful Night Poem James Thomson

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1880 Scarce Edition The City of Dreadful Night Poem James Thomson:
$491.81

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The City of Dreadful Night

and Other Poems

By James Thomson

1880 - London - Reeves and Turner

9\" by 6\"; 184pp.

DETAILS

James Thomson\'s first and most important book.

In the very scarce first issue large paper copy, of which only forty were printed.

The City of Dreadful Night is a study in melancholia and the introverted mind. It is a city of the mind, but real: a real unreal city. Nobody knows how they got there because the place itself is lost in a trackless wilderness of savage mountains, ravines, and bleak moors. Even the sea into which the River of the Suicides flows is called Ôshipless\'.

From the hills, the city is a nocturne in lead and faded gold: a line of faint light marks where the city broods in its own endless night. On the skyline, like congealed grief, looms the city\'s goddess, Melencolia. In day time the city shrinks till it\'s no bigger than a human heart but it is always there, a place of despair peopled by a sad brotherhood of monks and kings, priests, drunks, artists, poets, soldiers. It is a brotherhood, being inhabited mainly by men. Few women are there and, says the poet thankfully, fewer children. Nor are there many elderly men, which may suggest that the people afflicted this way either grow out of it or die young. (Thomson wrote the poem in two stages, when he was thirty-six and next when he was thirty-eight. He was only forty-seven when he died.)

CONDITION

In a cloth binding. Externally sound, with some rubbing and marks to the boards. Both hinges are very tender, and held by cords only. Front joint has started but still firm. Wear to top and tail ofspine. Internally, generally firmly. Pages have scattered spotting. In need of a recase, but well worth it. Overall: GOOD ONLY.

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