|  | | Edward James. With decorations by Rex Whistler.
London. The James Press. 1939. Second edition. First published in 1932. Limited to 412 copies, this being number 41 of 400 printed on pure rag machine-made paper. Grey buckbram-bound boards, with gilt star design to boards and title to spine, t.e.g.. xxxii, 91 pages. Title-page, dedication page, 4 full-page plates, numerous head- and tail-pieces, colophon device drawn by Rex Whistler. 285 x 195mm (11¼ x 7¾"). 0.8kg. . English. Very good; some very light wear to covers, some light browning to spine; some light spotting and browning to front free-endpaper, gutter starting to split in a couple of places, some pages uncut.
A privately-published collection of poems by the poet and surrealist patron Edward James. The Next Volume is beautifully illustrated by Rex Whistler. Edith Olivier writes in her diary in 1932 - "Rex is making drawings for some poems by a Mr James - the best drawings I have seen of his in some ways. Such a sure touch. An amusing one of New York - skyscrapers towering over a park in which the trees look like cabbages. It has great beauty.". James halted the binding of the first edition because "of how awful that first poem [At the Grave of Shelley] was". This poem, plus a couple of others, are corrected and lengthened in this second edition. Two additional poems ('Sadria' and 'To the Madonna of Torcello') are added in order to balance the pages for binding. In the appendix James talks of publishing another, third edition, this time with all the poems corrected and the text in various colours - "In the meantime, I think the beauty of the illustrations does justify this second edition.".
[Whistler & Fuller. The Work of Rex Whistler. No. 441; Thomasson. A Curious Friendship. p. 240]
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