MAUD, AND OTHER POEMS.

London : Edward Moxon, 1855. First edition. With the ownership signature of Tennyson's sister Matilda Tennyson (1816-1915), and further inscribed "Leonora M. Pinwill [Leonora Marian Pinwill (1842-1910)] from Matilda Tennyson July. 28th 1856". Matilda, perhaps the favourite sister, was known to the family primarily as Tilly - but also as "The Empress Maud". Her nickname is bestowed on this major collection of eight poems (Tennyson's own favourite to the end of his days) which added not only "Come into the garden, Maud", but also "Half a league onward", "Theirs not to reason why" and "Cannon to the right of them" to the universal canon of most quoted lines. "It is no small thing in these days of lying, humbug, and flunkey worship, to come at last upon a real, true thing, and that a genuine poem, full of those vivid yet subtle pictures of internal life and external nature which Tennyson knows so well how to draw" (The Atlas, 4th August 1855). Foolscap 8vo (18cm). [viii],154,[ii]pp + 8pp advertisements dated October 1855 inserted at front (advertisements dated July and August are also known). Original green cloth, decorated in blind; lightly sunned and a little worn; rear cover a little marked and ink-splashed; endpapers cracking; a little shaken; a few minor internal spots, but a good copy with a splendid association. With occasional pencil marks alongside the text.