FROST, ROBERT. (1874-1963). American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prizewinner; author of the beloved poems The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Signed Christmas pamphlet. (“R.F.”). 12mo. N.p., December 1944. Inscribed to his cousin and friend Joseph Frost (1923-2008) on the front cover’s paste-down label, “R.F. to J.F.” Five of six different imprints of Frost’s 1944 Christmas “token,” “An Unstamped Letter in Our Rural Letter Box,” Robert Frost (signed; one of 300 copies printed with the Robert Frost imprint), Margaret and Thomas W. Nason, the illustrator (100 printed), Marguerite and Fred Melcher (100 printed), Henry Holt and Company (1250 printed), Ann & Joseph Blumenthal, owner of the Spiral Press and printer of the Christmas tokens (200 printed). Crane B13.
Although born and raised in San Francisco until he was eight, Frost had a deep association with New England, living and writing variously in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. After spending three years in England, where he was befriended by Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas, he published his first two books, A Boy’s Will and North of Boston, after which he returned to New Hampshire where, from 1915 to 1920, he lived with his family on a farm in Franconia.
“An Unstamped Letter in Our Rural Letter Box” tells the story of a trespassing tramp and is illustrated with a woodcut of a rural mailbox by Thomas W. Nason that figures in the poem. The design was later included in Frost’s 1947 poetry collection Steeple Bush.
Joseph Frost was a local historian involved in numerous historical and genealogical organizations in Maine and New England. Despite an age difference of nearly fifty years, the cousins frequently visited one another, with Joseph accompanying his famous cousin on speaking engagements.
All the copies are in mint condition; uncommon thus.
