RELEASED. A Book of Verse

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1930. ix, [3], 63 pages. Original gray paper covered boards backed in red cloth with gilt spine lettering. [20.8 cm.] Neat marginal notes on four pages noting the inclusion of verses in an anthology, else good plus. Faint soiling to boards, modest signs of wear. Minuscule tear to fore-edge of a few leaves; faint offsetting from laid-in news clipping to two pages. FIRST EDITION of the author's first and only book of poetry. PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. It reads: "To my friend, Eva Mae Grice, with Easter Greetings and warmest good wishes. From Anne Blackwell Payne. April 1949." Grice (1921-1988) was a librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She later married the author, Richard M. McKenna, who wrote "The Sand Pebbles." "Released" was the first book of poetry published by the University of North Carolina Press. "Though this North Carolina writer had often been represented in such magazines as Poetry and the Virginia Quarterly Review, this is her first published volume of verse. The poems are grouped under three heads: Lyrics and Light Verse, Sonnets, and For a Child. The critics are unanimous in their recognition of Payne's sincerity, her fine workmanship, and her genuine poetic gift." --Books from Chapel Hill, pp. 199-200.