Eliot (T.S.) Ash Wednesday, light marginal toning, dust-jacket, chipped and torn with loss, ink ownership inscription of Michael Roberts with page number references to upper panel, 1930; The Scared Wood, bookplate of William Edward Roberts [Michael Roberts] to front pastedown, 1920; Sweeney Agonistes, review slip loosely inserted, dust-jacket, chipped and surface soiling, 1932; Collected Poems 1909-1935, typed poem titled "Bumbo Agonistes" featuring "Possum as Bumbo" loosely inserted, dust-jacket, chipped, browned and torn, lacking spine and lower panel, 1936; The Idea of a Christian Society, dust-jacket, light toning to spine, a few chips and tears to head and foot, 1939, first editions, most with ink and pencil notes to margins and rear endpapers, likely in the hand of Michael Roberts, original cloth, [Gallup A15b, A5a, A23, A32a & A35a]; and 14 others, Eliot, 8vo (19)

⁂ Provenance:

Janet Adam Smith (1905-99) Scottish writer, literary editor and journalist. From 1930 to 1935 she was assistant editor at The Listener, where she did much to promote the work of new poets, in particular W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Herbert Read and Louis MacNeice. In 1936 she succeeded Michael Roberts as chief reviewer in Eliot’s quarterly The Criterion. She married Michael Roberts in 1935.

Michael Roberts (1902-48) English poet, writer, mathematician, critic and broadcaster. He taught at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle and while there began publishing both his own poetry as well as editing anthologies, the most celebrated of which was the Faber Book of Modern Verse.