Mary Webb Fifty-One Poems 1946 First Edition Dust Jacket Joan Hassall
 
With Wood Engravings by Joan Hassall | Original Dust Jacket
 
Description & Significance
 
FIFTY-ONE POEMS
By Mary Webb
Illustrated with wood engravings by Joan Hassall
Published in 1946 by Jonathan Cape, London.
First published edition.
 
A posthumous collection of previously unknown poems discovered among the papers of H. B. L. Webb and issued exactly in the order in which they had been arranged. Long after it was believed that Webb’s poetic output had been fully gathered, this volume expanded her canon in a quietly significant way.
 
The final ten poems had appeared in the 1939 Mary Webb Anthology, yet the majority were new to readers in book form. The publisher’s note describes them simply as “a discovery.”
 
Elegantly enhanced with wood engravings by Joan Hassall; restrained, luminous, and entirely sympathetic to Webb’s deeply observant, nature-suffused verse.
 
Condition
 
Original dust jacket present (price clipped).
Edge creasing, small closed tears, marks, and tanning. Complete and structurally sound.
 
Green cloth boards remain vibrant, robust with light rubbing and very soft corner bumping.
Red decorative “MW” device to upper board.
Gilt spine lettering and motif clear.
Top edge green.
 
Internally lightly toned with light foxing to endpapers.
Occasional small marks.
Small pen “x” on page 11 and a handful of further pages.
Very slight partial gutter opening between pages 48–49 (minimal).
All 63 pages present and secure.
A well-preserved, attractive example.
 
About Mary Webb
 
Mary Webb (1881–1927) wrote with rare sensitivity to landscape, rural life, and mysticism. Set largely in Shropshire, her novels and poems possess a distinctive intensity, blending folklore, spirituality, and psychological depth. Though underappreciated in her lifetime, she was later championed by literary figures including Walter de la Mare and remains an important voice in early twentieth-century English literature.
 
About Joan Hassall
 
Joan Hassall (1906-1988) was among Britain’s most refined wood engravers. Her illustrations are characterised by clarity, delicacy, and classical balance. She produced work for numerous literary editions and is particularly admired by collectors of mid-century British book illustration.
 
Her engravings here lend this edition additional artistic and collector interest.
 
Rarity & Collector Appeal
 
✔ True first published edition (1946)
✔ Posthumous literary discovery
✔ Original dust jacket
✔ Wood engravings by Joan Hassall
✔ Jonathan Cape imprint
 
Copies retaining their original jackets are increasingly scarce. This edition appeals equally to collectors of Mary Webb, Cape first editions, illustrated poetry, and twentieth-century British literary printing.
 
A quietly significant and increasingly collectable literary first.