LAST POEMS, Edited With An Introduction by Richard Aldington

London: Martin Secker, 1933. First Edition, UK issue. A copy with pleasing provenance, having been the copy owned by Derek Marlowe with his ownership label affixed to the free-fly. 8vo, publisher's original black cloth over geometrically marbled paper covered boards, the spine lettered in gilt, in the original dustjacket, printed in blue and black. 181. An essentially fine copy, the book tight and strong and clean, the dustjacket with just a bit rubbing to the extremities. FIRST EDITION, ENGLISH ISSUE. Richard Aldington writes in the Introduction that two manuscripts were found among Lawrence's papers after his death and that these two notebooks of unprinted verse were posthumously published as Last Poems and More Pansies. These contain two of Lawrence's most famous poems about death, "Bavarian Gentians" and "The Ship of Death" and Aldington states that this book contains the whole of Lawrence's posthumous poetry.
This is the copy owned by Derek Marlowe the English playwright, novelist, screenwriter and painter. At college, Marlowe was a contemporary of the poet Lee Harwood, and after leaving he shared a flat with fellow writers Tom Stoppard and Piers Paul Read. In 1960 he adapted a story, "The Seven Who Were Hanged" by Leonid Andreyev, for the stage. The 60 Theatre Group first produced the play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1961, and later took it to a student theatre festival in Zadar, Croatia (then Yugoslavia). It was produced in London as The Scarecrow in 1964, and won the Foyle award. In 1962 Marlowe adapted Maxim Gorki's book The Lower Depths for the London stage. Marlowe also wrote nine novels and a fragment of a tenth.