Do Not Stand and Weep at My Grave

Unpaginated, circa 30pp, with pencil sketch illustrations on every other page. In grey cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine. In as new condition throughout. In its original dust jacket (a little bumped along upper edge, slightly faded towards top edge). 16mo. The poem printed in this volume, by an unknown author, was found in an envelope left by a soldier killed by an exploding mine near Londonderry in 1989. It was read by his father on the BBC TV programme, Bookworm, on Remembrance Sunday in 1995, evoking a huge and warm response. The original author remains a mystery, although several names have been suggested, ranging from J T Wiggins, an Englishman who emigrated to the United States at the end of the 19th century, to an Englishwoman named Mary Fry and an American woman, Marianne Reinhart. A pretty little volume of moving verse.