A Witness Tree by Frost, Robert - 1942

New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1942 First edition, early printing (June - 3 months after the first printing). Inscribed by Frost to the front free endpaper: "Zeita M. Burke / the best wishes of / Robert Frost / Bread Loaf 1942". Illustrated with a portrait frontispiece by Enit Kaufman. Publisher's coarse blue cloth, stamped in gilt, red top stain; in the original pictorial dust jacket, with a tree illustration by Alan Haemer to the front panel. A fine copy, with a hint of light toning to the extremities, else fine; unclipped dust jacket, with some light wear and minor chipping to the extremities, minor toning to the spine and panels, a hint of light rubbing to the hinges. Overall, a fresh and attractive copy. Robert Frost inscribed this copy to Zeita Burke, a Connecticut native, at the Bread Loaf School of English, the graduate school of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. Frost first came to the school in 1921 a year after its founding and inspired the development of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 1926. Frost returned to the campus annually for 42 years, including 29 sessions of the Writer's Conference. A Witness Tree is Frost's seventh book of poems, which earned him the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This volume's 42 poems are organized into four sections: "One or Two," which includes "Carpe Diem" and "A Cloud Shadow;" "Time Out," which contains "The Lost Follower" and "It Is Almost the Year Two Thousand;" "Quantuala," which includess "The Secret Sits" and "A Semi-Revolution;" and "Over Back," which contains "A Nature Note" and "The Literate Farmer and the Planet Venus." Already an established and beloved poet, A Witness Tree, which the dust jacket correctly promised would substantiate still further his claim to permanence and importance," earned Frost his 4th and final Pulitzer Prize.. Inscribed by Author. 1st Edition.. Hard Cover. Fine/Dust Jacket Included.