Dummy copy for pocket edition. Blue cloth, 1954

Component identifier:

Item 21(m)

Content Summary:

Inscribed: 'To Harry Chaplin with kind regards from Madge Dennis. A dummy copy for the Trench edition. Dec. 31. 1954.'

Evidently to determine the format, this copy contains verses from 'The Siron' and 'The Kid', together with blank leaves to build up. These pocket editions were popularly known as 'Trench' editions, as were those of poems by Paterson and Ogilvie, issued in similar format.

A number of the copies of The bloke issued in the Pocket editions were bound in soft purple leather, with the title lettered in gilt on the cover. The contents were similar to the cloth issues, other than for a variation in the lettering on title-page. Hal Gye's copy carried the announcement, 'Seventy-third thousand'. Under the heading The sentimental bloke, the poems 'A spring song', 'The intro', 'The Stoush O'Day' and 'Doreen', were previously published in the E.W. Cole edition of Backblock ballads. For their re-appearance in the Angus Robertson editions the author made some minor revisions.

Dennis wrote to Henry Lawson asking him if he would write a preface to The sentimental bloke. Lawson replied: 'Dear Den. Of course I will, you ole fool...' The letter, together with other of Lawson's letters to Dennis is reproduced in the catalogue of my Lawson collection, published by The Wentworth Press, 1974.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The collection was purchased from Harry Chaplin in 1981.

Names:

Chaplin, Harry F.

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