A song from 1607 and the reprise by Ralph Hodgson with illustrations by Claud Lovat Fraser.

This anonymous poem was first published as the lyric to one of Thomas Ford's simple arrangements for the solo voice. As a song and a poem it kept some currency: the poem was included in the Oxford Book of Engish Verse publish to general acclaim in 1900 ad the song retained its popularity as a parlour piece. We remember it from our own schooldays, when we used to hear it as part of the BBC Schools Broadcast, when the radio was part of the primary school curriculum.

During the years before the First World War Georgian poet Ralph Hodgson and his young friend Claud Lovat Fraser began writing and illustrating broadsheets and chapbooks for their popular Flying Fame series. After the war Flying Fame's concept of inexpensive chapbooks and broadsheets was appropriated by Harold Monro's Poetry Bookshop which included 'There is a Lady' in its 'second series' of Poetry Bookshop Broadsheets with Lovat Fraser's illustrations.

Perhaps those memories inspired Ralph Hodgson when, in the years after the Second World War while he was living in the United States, he returned  to  broadsheet and chapbook publication. This new broadsheet poem reflects on the ability of 'There is a Lady' to lift his spirits even as he falls ill.  Hodgson's biographer John Harding describes this poem as  'typical of his new style, stripped of any vestige of flowery language, absolutely matter of fact in tone and delivery'. We think he's given There is a Lady the perfect modernist slant.

Introduction by Graham Moss. 215 x 105 mm, [12] p. (unpaginated). Hand set in 12 point Poliphilus and Blado and printed on Zekall paper. 6 Claud Lovat Fraser decorations printed from line blocks. Sewn into a stiff card cover with a printed label that wraps from back to front. The edition is of about 200 numbered copies.

One of an occasional series of Incline Press Chapbooks designed to fit into a Bankers DL envelope.