England Reclaimed. A Book of Eclogues

Osbert Sitwell. Dust jacket design by E. McKnight Kauffer.

Duckworth. London. 1927. First edition. Hardback, octavo; orange cloth-bound boards, dust jacket. 100 pages. English. 230 x 150mm. 0.3kg. . Very good, in very good dust jacket; light fading to top edge of boards, light offsetting to endpapers, slight dustiness to top-edge, no inscriptions; light wear to jacket and at forecorners and spine ends, slight ruffling at head of spine, light marks and dustiness to spine.

A collection of pastoral poems by Osbert Sitwell, scarce in the original dust jacket designed by Edward McKnight Kauffer. The eclogues touch on an idealised England, a remembered youth and society. The volume is dedicated to Osbert's sister, Edith. Two further volumes form a trilogy of poetry focussed on place. Kauffer's striking dust jacket features a stylised figure representing a modern Green Man.
 
[Further reading: National Portrait Gallery, 'The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s', 1994, no. 5.7; Artmonsky, Ruth & Brian Webb, 'Kauffer's Covers. The Book Jackets and Covers of Edward McKnight Kauffer, 2021, p. 76]