Spangled Unicorn. An Anthology. "Edited, with an introduction" by Noël Coward.

Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., London [1932] Book. Good. Hardcover. 1st Edition. First Edition (first printing). 8vo. 101pp. Cloth-backed patterned paper-covered boards with somewhat faded spine lettering. With a frontispiece and ten photographic portrait of 'the authors'. Corner tips rubbed and with some fading to the cloth at the backstrip ends where the dust wrapper is defective, and to the upper margins of both boards. Some fox-spotting. Faint ghost of partially erased former owner name pencilled to the front free endpaper. A good copy in the uncommon dust wrapper, alas a somewhat nicked, chipped, dust soiled, creased and torn example with several inches of loss from the spine panel ends, and several further fractions of loss from the corner tips and extremities. A satirical anthology of woefully poor verse, penned by Coward but accredited to a series ridiculously named imaginary poets: Elihu Dunn, Tao Lang Pee, Serge Lliavanov, Juana Mandragágita, Crispin Pither &c, each selection preceded by an introductory note by Coward ("Janet Urdler was born in Exeter on a very bleak day in November 1887. Her childhood was grim and church-ridden, nothing stirred in her consciousness of things other, until 1900 when she was taken to Dawlish in a bullock cart"; "Nothing whatsoever is known about Ada Johnston")..