Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

Being an account of the battle and of the events which led up to it, with a collection of the poems and ballads written thereupon between 1805 and 1905

Item Description

FIRST EDITION. 4to. 8 x 5.5 inches. xv + [i] 244 pp. + [4] pp publisher's advertisements. Bound in original navy cloth, gilt, front board with monogrammed gilt borders enclosing title. Rough cut borders. Extremities worn including corners and head and tail of spine. Fly leaves browned and foxing largely confined to edges. Manuscript Trafalgar Day poem, signed and dated Oct. 21. 1905, by Newbolt on first free endpaper and verso. Monogrammed crested bookplate with motto, Tolle Lege Redde (Take up, read and save), dated 1909 in pencil; Illustrated by portrait frontispiece (Nelson), protected by tissue guard, and by 5 plates of maps and plans. 'Play up! play up! and play the game!' (Vitai Lampada) and Drake's Drum were among the well known patriotic naval and military ballads by Sir Henry John Newbolt (1862-1938), poet, novelist and historian. During the First World War, Newbolt was appointed to the War Propaganda Bureau and subsequently became Controller of Cables and Wireless at the Foreign Office. At the end the author includes The Poems of Trafalgar, twenty six poems by other writers. This copy is notable for his own contribution and features the manuscript Ode to Trafalgar Day, written out, signed and dated by him, 21 October 1905.