Description
The first edition, first printing of The Lady Is Cold: Poems by E.B.W. by E.B. White.
Octavo, xii, 96pp. First issue binding, with pictorial paper-covered boards and black cloth spine, title stamped in gilt on spine. The first printing, with Harper code “C-D” on copyright page, indicating a March 1929 publication. Lacking the publisher’s scarce dust jacket.
First edition copies are found in two binding variants, with the first issue binding generally preferred.
The Lady Is Cold was White’s first commercially published book, following only the rare in-house New Yorker promotional booklet Less Than Nothing; or, The Life and Times of Sterling Finny. Published under the initials E.B.W., the collection gathered White’s early verse from the period when he was establishing himself as a writer at The New Yorker, decades before the publication of Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Elements of Style.
