Green Places: Poems of Wales (Signed and Inscribed)

First edition, first impression.  Signed  and inscribed by A G Prys-Jones to Howard Spring on the front free endpaper, dated 1949.  92pp.  Green cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine.  Slim 12mo.  Cloth is a little faded around extreme edges and spine joints, gently rubbed on corners and spine tips.  Hint of shadowing to text block edges.  Internally neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original matte dust jacket, shelf worn, a little bumped and rubbed at extreme edges and slightly sunned over spine.  Not price clipped.  Dust wrapper now protected in an archival-quality Mylar sleeve, fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.

The inscription, which reads ‘a small token of much tribute’ is perhaps (likely?, but without direct evidence or provenance) to Howard Spring, the Welsh novelist and journalist and close contemporary of Arthur Glyn Prys-Jones, the Angle-o-Welsh poet and educationalist.  The two were close contemporaries  and both were prominent Anglo-Welsh literary figures in first part of the 20th century, working to preserve and celebrate Welsh identity and story-telling in English.  Their personal correspondence on such matters is preserved in the National Library of Wales. 

Prys-Jones, as a poet, at one time needed little introduction.  Many of his earlier lyrical poems are well-known to this fellow Welsh countrymen and a substantial number were set to music by Welsh, English and American composers.  He is also appreciated as the first pioneer who presented an anthology of the works of Welsh poets writing in English to the general public.  Green Places was his first volume of verse since 1923, a collection including poems in English and Welsh, some of which had been previously published in magazine and newspapers.  It bears the impress of a poet deeply aware of the history and traditions of Wales, of its beauty and natural magic and of its evocative poetry,  W H Davies gave Prys-Jones high praise for his lyrical skills and sensitivity to colour and beauty, his affinity to music and his moods of humour and mysteriousness.  All these features of the poet’s skill are evident in this collection.