Elizabeth  SMART (1913-1986). By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. London: Editions Poetry London, [1945]. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 ½ inches; 213 x 140mm).  Pp.[1-]5-54. Title printed I red and black. Original red cloth, pictorial dust-jacket from a design by Gerald Wilde (discoloration to cloth, dust-jacket split in two at backstrip, with some loss). Provenance: Clive Alexander Barnes (1927-2008, ‘Clive A. Barnes’ ex-libris stamp to front free endpaper).          

Rare first edition of Canadian-born novelist and poet Elizabeth Smart’s best-known work: an extended prose poem inspired by her romance with the poet George Barker. A “visceral journey into the human heart, written in a language so urgent, raw and lyrical that each sentence is a bruise or a kiss" (Raffaella Barker). Apparently the first print run was just 2000 copies – this copy has the additional attraction of having belonged to English writer and theater and dance critic, Clive A. Barnes.