LYRE, Pinchbeck (pseudonym for SASSOON, Siegfried (1886-1967)). Poems. London: Duckworth, 1931.

Virginia Woolf’s copy of the first edition, with her ownership inscription on the front endpaper. Urged on by Edith Sitwell, Sassoon wrote the present collection to parody the contemporary poet Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940). Woolf and Sassoon were intimates of Lady Ottoline Morrell, whose Garsington estate welcomed both regularly. In his diary entry for January 13 1924, Sassoon wrote: ‘I have wanted to meet V. W. since last April, when I read Jacob’s Room at Garsington. But I felt that the Woolfs belong to a rarefied intellectual atmosphere in which I should be ill at ease.’ Keynes A35.

Octavo. (Minor spotting.) Original black boards lettered in green on upper cover (minor marks, ring impression to lower cover). Provenance: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941; ownership inscription on front endpaper).