HOUSEMAN, A. E. A Shropshire Lad, London: E. Grant, 1907, 16°, KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S COPY, LATER IN THE LIBRARY OF JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY, inscribed on front blank: "Kathleen with love from Sylvia. Christmas 1908," ANNOTATED IN PENCIL BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD on page 3 and with a 14-line pencil note in German on the rear free endpaper reading: "Ich muss arbeiten, um vergessen zu können, ich muss bekämpfen, um mich selbst wieder achten zu können. Ich muss mich nützlich machen, um wieder an das Leben glauben zu können. Ich will arbeiten, ich will um das Glück um die Zufriedenheit kämpfen. ... Wir müssen jeder sein: allein arbeiten, allein kämpfen, um unsere Kraft, unsere Opferwilligkeit zu beweisen" ["I have to work to be able to forget, I have to fight to be able to respect myself again. I have to be useful to be able to believe in life again. I want to work, I want to fight for happiness and contentment. ... We have to be everybody: work alone, fight alone to prove our strength and unselfishness/devotion"], the same note then copied by John Middleton Murry onto rear pastedown, original blind-stamped rose cloth (soiled) -- H. E. KREHBIEL. Afro-American Folksongs, New York & London: G. Schirmer, 1914, 8°, KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S COPY, LATER IN THE LIBRARY OF JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY, the front blank inscribed: "Katherine Mansfield 1914," and also bearing Murry's library reference mark in pencil, original blue cloth gilt. (2)

Details

HOUSEMAN, A. E. A Shropshire Lad, London: E. Grant, 1907, 16°, KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S COPY, LATER IN THE LIBRARY OF JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY, inscribed on front blank: "Kathleen with love from Sylvia. Christmas 1908," ANNOTATED IN PENCIL BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD on page 3 and with a 14-line pencil note in German on the rear free endpaper reading: "Ich muss arbeiten, um vergessen zu können, ich muss bekämpfen, um mich selbst wieder achten zu können. Ich muss mich nützlich machen, um wieder an das Leben glauben zu können. Ich will arbeiten, ich will um das Glück um die Zufriedenheit kämpfen. ... Wir müssen jeder sein: allein arbeiten, allein kämpfen, um unsere Kraft, unsere Opferwilligkeit zu beweisen" ["I have to work to be able to forget, I have to fight to be able to respect myself again. I have to be useful to be able to believe in life again. I want to work, I want to fight for happiness and contentment. ... We have to be everybody: work alone, fight alone to prove our strength and unselfishness/devotion"], the same note then copied by John Middleton Murry onto rear pastedown, original blind-stamped rose cloth (soiled) -- H. E. KREHBIEL. Afro-American Folksongs, New York & London: G. Schirmer, 1914, 8°, KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S COPY, LATER IN THE LIBRARY OF JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY, the front blank inscribed: "Katherine Mansfield 1914," and also bearing Murry's library reference mark in pencil, original blue cloth gilt. (2)

Lot Essay

The German inscription in Katherine Mansfield's copy of the Shropshire Lad is printed in the Journal, p. 43, and quoted in part by Alpers in his Life of Katherine Mansfield (1980), p. 98. In an accompanying chapter note on p. 433, Alpers states: "The original is not in any of K. M.'s notebooks in Wellington. Murry included several marginalia, and notes from flyleaves of K. M.'s books, when compiling the Journal, making his own deductions as to appropriate dates." If Murry's deduction as to date is correct in this case, the inscription, "in stilted and incorrect German," would have been written at Wörishofen, Germany, in the summer of 1909, shortly after the miscarriage of her child.

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