• Title: Poems from France
• Author: Harry Webb Farrington
• Edition: Fourth edition, 1920
• Publisher: Rough & Brown Press
• Format: Hardcover with dust jacket (jacket from 5th edition, period but mismatched)
• Features: Illustrated
• Inscription: Signed and warmly inscribed by the author to Robert F. Rich, U.S. Congressman and classmate, dated Feb. 25, 1923
• Condition: Book clean and sound; jacket present but bibliographically incorrect

 

 

“War remembered in verse, friendship inscribed in ink.”

 

A soldier’s voice turned poet, Harry Webb Farrington’s Poems from France carries the echoes of the Great War into verse both tender and resolute. This fourth edition, published in 1920, bears not only the author’s words but his hand—inscribed to Robert F. Rich, his old classmate and future Congressman, in a gesture of affection and esteem. The mismatched dust jacket, announcing the later “Cher Ami” edition, adds its own curious layer of history, a reminder of how books travel through time with traces of other lives. Here is a volume that bridges literature, war memory, and political Americana, inviting the reader to hold a piece of lived dialogue between author and friend.

Collectors of WWI poetry, inscribed association copies, and Americana tied to Pennsylvania political history.

 

If this book finds a place in your collection, I’d be grateful if you shared a few words about how it resonates with you. Your reflections help me continue offering volumes that carry both clarity and poetic depth.

 

Book conditions are:

            Dust jacket (does not belong to this book) is distressed, exhibiting loss, repairs made with tape, tears, chipping, curl, creasing, foxing, tanning, staining, soiling. Boards and spine exhibit soiling, staining, chipping, bow, bubbling. Cocked spine. Shaken spine. Edges are soiled, tanned, scuffed. Head, toe, corners are bumped and chipped. Pastedowns and flyleaves exhibit soiling, tanning, heavy foxing, heavy shadowing. Ink/white-out markings on front pastedown. Author’s inscription and signature on front flyleaf. Page xii has a tear at the bottom inside corner. Gutter separation at pages 50/51. Tanning to pages with sporadic shadowing and foxing. 51 pages. Please see photos for more details.

 

This copy is inscribed by the author to Robert F. Rich (1872–1968), a Pennsylvania industrialist and long-serving U.S. Congressman (Republican, 1930–1951). The personal inscription— “Presented to Robert F. Rich, my old classmate and team-mate of W.D.S. 1903 with affection and esteem”.

W.D.S. in Farrington’s inscription almost certainly refers to Dickinson Seminary, (Williamsport Dickinson Seminary, the institution that later became Lycoming College) a Methodist preparatory school in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where both Harry Webb Farrington and Robert F. Rich studied and played sports together in the early 1900s.

Context

• Harry Webb Farrington (1879–1930): Orphaned in childhood, he studied at Dickinson Seminary, then went on to Syracuse University, Boston University, and Harvard.
• Robert F. Rich (1872–1968): Also attended Dickinson Seminary before his career as an industrialist and U.S. Congressman.
• Inscription reference: “My old classmate and team-mate of W.D.S. 1903” points to their shared time at Dickinson Seminary, where Farrington was active in athletics (football and basketball).