Lettice Barbara Hay Shaw. January 27th 1887 – June 4th 1904.

8vo., original red cloth spine with white label, and grey card boards with Shaw’s initials printed in red, foredge and bottom edge deckle, pp. 198, with frontispiece photographic portrait of the author in 1903, and two more photographic plates. Some bumps and marks to binding, slight slant to spine, pages edges grubby; though internally clean and very good. A touching, privately printed book of verse and prose by Lettice B. Hay Shaw (1887-1904), who had died at the age of seventeen, leaving an impressive body of writings. These are divided into: ‘Early Verses: Written before the age of eleven’; ‘Verses: Written between the ages of eleven and fourteen’; ‘Later Verses’; ‘Humorous Verses’; ‘Translations’; ‘Thoughts’; ‘Prose Writings’; and ‘Letters’. A very rare book and important historical document of turn-of-the-century English private literary culture.