This first collection of Thompson’s verse was initiated by Alice Meynell and was assembled during his first stay at Pantasaph Friary, where the work played a role in helping him with his withdrawal from opium. Meynell commended it to the publishers, as did Richard le Gallienne, whose reader’s report is a model of its type:
“Would certainly publish. Rich, coloured, oriental things. Remind me very much of Crashaw. Lack concentration & form, but are marked by a fine, extremely Latinized style, a sumptuous fancy, & some splendid lines. One or two strike me as less good, such as “The Dead at Westminster” — & a rigid revision might be well, though the writer seems to have revised them a good deal already. Probably they will be more characteristic as they are. To prune them too much would be to rob them of their charm of prodigality.”
An extremely good copy, more or less fine, with Blairhame book-label of the Insley Blairs, in a stout folding cloth case with leather spine label.
