Robert Frost Supports Great Britain, His “Favorite Ally,” During World War II
Beautiful signed book.
Books Across the Sea was a cultural and literary movement founded in 1940 by Beatrice Warde to help offset Nazi propaganda among expatriate Americans remaining in London after the fall of France. She arranged through her mother, May Lamberton Becker, literary editor of the New York Herald Tribune, for single copies...
Books Across the Sea was a cultural and literary movement founded in 1940 by Beatrice Warde to help offset Nazi propaganda among expatriate Americans remaining in London after the fall of France. She arranged through her mother, May Lamberton Becker, literary editor of the New York Herald Tribune, for single copies of 70 new significant American book titles to be imported into England in friends’ hand luggage. It was necessary to import them this way as the result of the stopping of the transatlantic trade in printed books; at that time there was a ban on the import and export of non-essential goods into Britain to free-up shipping space for more essential goods. The books were displayed in the offices of the Americans in Britain Outpost of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. A similar present of British-published books was sent to America. The books were carefully selected to mirror life in the two countries and included educational titles. Schools assembled and sent scrap books showing the daily life of the children.
It was quickly seen that books were essential good-will ambassadors, and a formal organization was set up to run it, with branches in Britain (in London and Edinburgh) and America (in New York and Boston), first under the chairmanship of Professor Arthur Newall, and soon after by T. S. Eliot. By 1944 some 2,000 volumes had been received in London and 1600 in New York. The branches also acted as enquiry centers about life in the two countries. Books Across the Sea was formally adopted by The English-Speaking Union in 1947 which still runs it, widening the scope to cover other countries.
Only too pleased to be sent as one of my country’s gifts to my favorite ally
This is Robert Frost’s contribution to the program:?His book “A Masque of Reason,” a first printing, with an inscription both serious and humorous at the same time, reading “Only too pleased to be sent as one of my country’s gifts to my favorite ally. Robert Frost April 26, 1945. Hanover in our only Shire State [New Hampshire].” This is the only Frost piece relating to World War II that we can recall seeing, and all the nicer being part of the Books Across the Sea program.
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