8vo. 295pp, [1]. Original publisher's black cloth-backed decorated boards, lettered in gilt. Without (the rarely seen) dustwrapper. A trifle rubbed. Bookseller's ticket of Blackwells of Oxford to FEP, early inked ownership inscription to recto of FFEP. Presentation copy, flat signed by Graves to half-title.

The first edition of a ground-breaking critical analysis of modern poetry, from Byron to Cummings, Eliot to Tate, by Robert Graves (1895-1985) in collaboration with his lover, the American poet and novelist Laura Riding (1901-1991). The work notably influenced literary critic Sir William Empson (1906-1984) to write his equally influential Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), a key foundation text in the formation of the New Criticism school.