A Boy's Will
"Perhaps it is best hinted by stating that the poems combine, with a rare sufficiency, the essential qualities of inevitability and surprise. We have read every line with that amazement and delight which are too seldom evoked by books of modern verse. Without need of qualification or a trimming of epithets, it is undoubtedly the work of a true poet... Rarely today is it our fortune to fall in with a new poet expressing himself in so pure a vein. No one who really cares for poetry should miss this little book. There is scarcely a poem of them all but will reward with a thrill, and many of them will yield much more" -Review of A Boy's Will in The Academy, September 20, 1913
SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY ROBERT FROST, "with friendly regards / Robert Frost / Jefferson, NH / August 22 1916". First American edition (second state) of Frost's first book.
"By 1911 Frost was fighting against discouragement. Poetry had always been considered a young person's game, but Frost, who was nearly 40 years old, had not published a single book of poems and had seen just a handful appear in magazines. In 1911 ownership of the Derry farm passed to Frost. A momentous decision was made: to sell the farm and use the proceeds to make a radical new start in London, where publishers were perceived to be more receptive to new talent. Accordingly, in August 1912 the Frost family sailed across the Atlantic to England. Frost carried with him sheaves of verses he had written but not gotten into print. English publishers in London did indeed prove more receptive to innovative verse, and, through his own vigorous efforts and those of the expatriate American poet Ezra Pound, Frost within a year had published A Boy's Will (1913). From this first book, such poems as 'Storm Fear,' 'Mowing,' and 'The Tuft of Flowers' have remained standard anthology pieces" (Britannica).
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915. 12mo, original green cloth stamped in gilt. Some moderate edgewear to corners and spine extremities; text fine.
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