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A book that I have long wanted to add to my collection and at last I have been able to do it.
The Daffodil Murderer: Being the Chantrey Prize Poem by Saul Kain - By Siegfried Sassoon. 1,000 copies published in London on 10th February 1913 by John Richmond, with a preface by William Butler. (Keynes A10). One night Sassoon sat down and began to write a parody of John Masefield’s poem, ‘Everlasting Mercy.’ After the first fifty lines he had become so wrapped up in what he was doing he gave up the pretence and threw himself into it wholeheartedly. He got up the following morning and continued throughout the day, finally finishing it that evening. He sent the poem to T.W.H. Crosland who promptly replied that he wanted to publish it. Crosland had a thousand copies printed as a small paperback of thirty pages with orange covers. Printed on the front cover he put ‘Being the Chantrey Prize Poem’ when no such prize existed, and made up a mock preface under the assumed name of William Butler. Sassoon had to give Crosland £10 towards expences for publishing it.
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