THE CITY OF REFUGE AND OTHER POEMS (ASSOCIATION COPY, SIGNED BY AND WITH A LAID-IN LETTER FROM LYNN DOYLE)
Dublin, Ireland: Maunsel and Co., Ltd., 1917. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo, 7.7 in. x 5.2 in. pp. 80. Association copy inscribed, dated (1919) and signed by poet and author Lynn Doyle (Leslie Alexander Montgomery) on the half title page. Dark gray paper covers with beige cloth spine. Black title on beige paper label to spine. Untrimmed fore-edge. Light rubbing to extremities, with nudges to front corners. A few spots to cloth spine. Sunning to dustjacket spine with rubbing to title; light soiling to front of dustjacket. Chips to dustjacket spine ends. Very Good / Good plus. Item #87962
Laid in: Personal 4-page letter, dated 11/19/1919, signed by Leslie Montgomery (Lynn Doyle) to "Mr. Cunningham" regarding the quality and vitality of Richard Rowley's poetry. Rowley "is a genuine and most devoted lover of Belfast in all its manifestations of energy."
Richard Rowley (1877-1947) - the pen name of Richard Valentine Williams - left school and entered the family firm of McBride and Williams, which in a linen town manufactured cotton handkerchiefs; in due course he became its managing director. After the firm's collapse in 1931 he was Chairman of the Northern Ireland Assistance Board. In the meantime he had earned a reputation as a poet. His early poems, in The City of Refuge (Dublin, 1917), were... celebrations of industry... He also wrote short stories ... and at least one highly successful play, Apollo In Mourne, in which the Greek god, banished from Olympus, comes to earth in the Mourne country, to devastating effect. In his final years he was working on a series of Bardic Tales, based on Celtic mythology, which, though impressive, have never been published. During the Second World War Rowley founded, and ran from his Newcastle home, the short-lived Mourne Press. (Dictionary of Ulster Biography).
Price: $275.00