Wild Geese.

Bookseller Notes

The letter to the author tipped to the inside cover is from Reggie Turner, the author and friend of Oscar Wilde, writing from Florence; it offers extensive praise for the poet's work, saying that he was 'very pleased and gratified when I received your little book of poems and much flattered at your kind thought of me, but I did not suspect that I was to have such pleasure in the reading of them'. They were, he continues, 'such a delight - [...] after the tortuous and tortured verses of the likes which most young poets pour forth', in contrast to which Hill's 'lyrics [...] flow along in the great tradition of sweet English verse with the happy marriage of perfect form and a real touch of inspiration'. Turner hopes 'you will activate your muse and am sure you will win recognition', looking 'forward to seeing a volume of your collected poems so far as they have gone in these slim booklets', being 'sure you have many more maturing in what must be a genuine & charming poet's mind'. He closes by sending his 'greetings to the "onlie begetter" of the dedication'; the recipient of the amatory 'Dedication' poem that opens the collection is obscure - though this closing note suggests that the man in question seems to have been known to Turner.Brian Hill was one of the six children of physiologist Leonard Hill - and the grandson of Johnsonian scholar George Birkbeck Hill. This is his second collection of poetry, more pastoral in its content (as the title suggests) than the first, 'Youth's Heritage', which included verses regarding the Great War - in which Hill served as a Lieutenant with the Durham Light Infantry. He later wrote detective novels alongside Joanna Elder Giles, under the pseudonym Marcus Magill - the two of them having been members of the literary circle 'The Launderers', which included the young Antonia White, with whom Hill is believed to have had an affair (the fact of his being gay seemingly not an impediment, as the orientation of her first two husbands would attest). A play written by Hill, with White, caused controversy for its homosexual content when it was performed at The Cave of Harmony in London's West End.Hill also published translations and edited anthologies, as well as being the executor of Samuel Butler's estate alongside Geoffrey Keynes.A scarce book: Oxford, BL, and Senate House only on LibraryHub.