My Brother Aquarius. Poems by Stephen Tennant

Stephen Tennant.

Nash Publications. Bournemouth. 1961. First edition. Blue cloth-bound hardback with titles in gilt, dust jacket. Obituary of Tennant loosely inserted. [x], 62 pages. Dust jacket with colour design by Tennant, reproduced in the frontispiece. English. 235 x 185mm. 0.3kg. . Very good, in good dust jacket; light shelf wear to fragile dust jacket, light soiling to white parts of jacket, some wear to forecorners, occasional short tears, three longer tears to rear jacket with some creasing, tears repaired with tape to verso; some mottling to cloth boards, binding firm, some occasional spotting.

My Brother Aquarius contains 52 poems by Stephen Tennant. The verse looks back in time to past travels, lost romance and pastoral idylls, and has a strong autobiographical element. It was published by a local printer in Bournemouth and Tennant sent the book to friends and fellow writers, including W. H. Auden and Edmund Blunden. The title is derived from a line by Keats - "Crystalline brother of the belt of Heaven: Aquarius!" (Endymion). The book is dedicated to Barbara Hutton and the preface is written directly to Princess Bibesco. The blurb on the rear dust jacket alludes to Lascar, the incomplete novel that Tennant laboured on throughout his life.[Hoare, Philip. Serious Pleasures. p.347-9]