Author: GREGORY, Leo
Title: The Angelus
Description: Aurora, IL, The H.H. Publishing Co, 1907. Hardcover. 12mo. Light blue cloth with gilt lettering. 30pp. Frontispiece. Very good. Binding (mostly spine) rubbed, else tight and internally near fine; several inkstamped institutional stamps of Wisconsin convent. First edition of this poem with a purpose -- with an unusual inspiration: In1898 poet Edwin Markham published his "The Man with a Hoe," a social protest poem based on an 1860 painting of that name by French artist Jean-Francois Millet. It was a sensation and became one of the most popular poems of that generation. It turns out that in 1857 Millet made a painting called "Prayer for the Potato Crop" (renamed "The Angelus"), which inspired Gregory to pen this companion poem. In Gregory's foreword he describes his poem as "a poem for serious people. The author hopes to please thoughtful men and women, people who take a serious view of life.." On the front flyleaf, he inscribes and signs this copy large and bold: "To Mother General M. Emily, / with compliments / of Lee Gregory, / April 20, '08." Most unusual. .

Keywords: Poetry


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