[ANNOTATED BY STEVIE SMITH] Mother, What is Man?

Presentation copy with 4 autograph corrections to the text by the poet. This is a first edition of Stevie Smith's 3rd volume of poetry, illustrated by the author, bound in blue cloth, rubbed, internally near fine. On the first flyleaf is written: ‘To Jane and Mark from Stevie with love.’ Above is a pencil note stating that ‘Jane = Tabrisky (Degras)’ and ‘Mark = “Benney” (Degras)’. Smith’s corrections appear at pages 18, 49 and 54. In the first of these ‘dammed’ in the line ‘Poet, thou art dead and dammed’ is corrected in blue-black ink to ‘damned’ with the poet’s initials nearby: ‘S.S.’ At page 49 the phrase ‘amid painted scenery’ is replaced with ‘before green scenery’, again initialled with one further word substitution to the poem ‘A Man I am’. Jane Degras wrote extensively on left-wing subjects and was a longtime friend of Stevie Smith - she is referenced in the recent book on mid-century women philosophers, Metaphysical Animals, with Smith, attending a party thrown by Iris Murdoch for Phillippa Foot. Stevie Smith’s poetry and novels continue to fascinate in their strange, simplistic, sophisticated darkness. Her husband wrote under the name Mark Benney but was actually named Degras - a reformed burglar turned criminologist.