ROBERT FROST'S NEW HAMPSHIRE, INSCRIBED BY HIM WITH TWO LINES OF VERSE FROM THE BOOK

FROST, Robert. New Hampshire. A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes. New York: Henry Holt, (1924). Octavo, original half green cloth, uncut. $4800.

First edition, fourth printing, issued a year after the first printing, inscribed by Frost on the front free endpaper with lines from the poem "A Star in a Stone-Boat": "He was not used to stars thrown dark/ And lifeless from an interrupted arc./ Robert Frost."

New Hampshire contains a number of Frost's most famous poems: "Fire and Ice," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and "Nothing Gold Can Stay." Frost, who lived much of his life in New Hampshire, said that he wrote the title poem, a poetic tribute to his state, in one night. "Using Horace's satirical discourses, the Sermones, as a model, Frost composed a long poem that, according to Lawrence Thompson, 'scatter[s] friendly banter through a rhapsody of anecdotes, exempla, dialogue, self-appraisal, self-disparagements, epigrams, and proverbs.' By way of such diverse poetic modes he praises the economic self-sufficiency of New Hampshire" (Robert Frost Encyclopedia, 230-31). With four woodcuts by J.J. Lankes. The lines Frost has penned in this copy differ slightly from the printed version: in Frost's inscription he has written "He was not used to stars thrown dark" while the printed version reads "He was not used to handling stars thrown dark." Without original dust jacket. Crane A6. Owner signature dated 1925; owner ink inscription on rear free endpaper, quoting Frost.

Interior clean; rubbing to corners, board edges and ends of slightly toned spine. A very good copy, desirable inscribed by Frost with lines of verse.