A ROUNDEL OF RETREAT.
Printed from the Unpublished Original Manuscript in the Library of John S. Mayfield.
- London: Charles Ottley, Landon, & Co., 1950.
- 4to
- cream paper wrappers, stapled, upper wrapper lettered in black
- [6]+[2] (colophon with Ashley Library device, verso blank)
Price: $100.00 other currencies
Order Nr. 136976
Edition strictly limited to about Thirty Copies, printed for Thomas J. Wise. *A hoax, produced in imitation of the so-called 'Gullible Papers' - one of which was also a Swinburne pastiche. This copy is unnumbered, but was supposed to be numbered by Wise, who died in 1937. (In his account of Richard Jennings' creation of the 'Gullible Papers', Percy Muir claimed the Swinburne parody Roundels in Wrappers (Unstitched). A Roundel of Rascals, was 'so excellent that it is almost entitled to rank as a forgery' [Minding My Own Business, p. 94]. As well as the false imprint, this copy is presented as the poet's own copy, with a book label 'From the Library of Algernon Charles Swinburne' on front pastedown. Furthermore, a bookseller's description, in this case "#559", describing the book as a legitimate imprint, is loosely inserted. "RARE. No copy in B.M., Bodleian, or Brotherton libraries. None recorded in U.S." From the Thomas M. Whitehead Collection of Books About Books.