[FROST, ROBERT]. High School Bulletin. Vol. XI, Number 8. Lawrence, Mass., April 1890. 4to, 8 pages, original tan wrappers, printed in gold on front and black on rear, stitched as issued, covers split along half of spine, some light irregular fading to front cover, small light stains at a few margins; half morocco slipcase. FIRST EDITION, CONTAINING FROST'S FIRST PUBLISHED WORK, "LA NOCHE TRISTE," a long poem about Cortez on pp. 1-2 of this issue of his high school magazine. "Robert Frost was fond of reminiscing about the dark and windy afternoon in March of 1890 when he, a [sixteen-year-old] high school sophomore at Lawrence, Massachusetts, began composing a poem in his head as he strode along homeward, swinging his books at the end of a strap. The lines of verse came to him with a rush, stanza after stanza. The subject matter, derived from his recent reading of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, was the sad night...Cortez and his soldiers were nearly wiped out...at Mexico City. The long ballad [an unrhymed prologue of 27 lines, followed by 25 quatrains] which resulted from this inceptive literary effort...was submitted the next day to...the Lawrence High School Bulletin. Immediately accepted, the poem was included in the magazine's April issue, signed merely with numerals representing the author's class: '92"--Edward Connery Lathem, Robert Frost 100 [exhibition catalogue], Boston, 1974, no. 1; Clymer & Green, p. 81. Actually in very good condition for such a perishable item. VERY RARE: Not in Crane/Barrett (1974); not in the William E. Stockhausen Frost collection (1974).