WWI Soldier
In 1916, Aldington enlisted in the British army as a private, rising by 1918 to Acting Captain. Aldington was replaced as Assistant Editor of The Egoist by T. S. Eliot, of whom Aldington was an early sponsor, although Aldington continued to be a contributor. Aldington continued to write poetry, and his war poems, some of which were published during the war in journals such as The Dial, The Egoist, and The Little Review, were published as Images of War in 1919 by the Beaumont Press, with illustrations by Paul Nash.
During 1917, the Reverend Charles Bubb, who operated the Clerk’s Press in Cincinnati, a publisher of very limited editions printed on a hand press, wrote to Aldington and in the same year printed Reverie: A Little Book of Poems for H.D., which contained a number of Aldington’s war poems. Bubb ultimately published five booklets by Aldington, including two books of poems and three of translations.
Photographer unknown
Aldington in the Uniform of a Private
Photograph 1916
In 1916, in the face of imminent conscription, Aldington enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment and was sent to France at the end of the year. He was soon transferred to a Pioneer battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, before being made a runner. This photograph appears to have been used in a previous exhibition.
Richard Aldington
Reverie: A Little Book of Poems for H.D.
Cincinnati, The Clerk’s Press, 1917
Limited to 50 copies on Tuscany hand-made paper, and printed on a hand-press by the Rev. Charles Clinch Bubb (1876 -1936). The Clerk’s Press published five volumes by Aldington. In a letter to Bubb, Aldington refers to the poems in this volume as “representing the best of my trench work.”
Maker’s mark “SJR”
Military Identification Bracelet of Richard Aldington
Silver
1918
Bracelet worn by officers to facilitate Identification in case of severe wounds or death. Inscribed on the face, “2nd. Lt. R. Aldington/ C [Church] of E[England]/Royal Sussex Rgmt”. Aldington was commissioned into the regiment in April 1918. In 1925, Aldington gave the bracelet as a christening gift from himself and Arabella to the daughter of Glenn and Babette Hughes. Arabella’s name was presumably engraved on the rear of the bracelet at that time. Glenn Hughes was the author of an early study of the Imagists.
Photographer unknown
Richard Aldington as an Officer
July 1918
Illustration from Richard Aldington: An Intimate Portrait by Alister Kershaw and F.-J. Temple, Southern Illinois University Press, 1966
Photograph of Aldington in uniform as an officer In the Royal Sussex Regiment. H.D. saw him as “a great over-sexed officer” (Bid Me to Live, Dial Press, New York, 1960). He was to be a participant in the Battle of Cambrai in 1918.
Richard Aldington
Images of War
London, The Beaumont Press, 1919
Images of War was illustrated with woodcuts by Paul Nash, who had been an official war artist during WWI. Nash also designed the cover paper, which depicts an artillery barrage and is signed in the lower right-hand corner. Like many of the press’s publications, Images of War was issued in multiple formats. This copy, in the least limited format (120 copies), bears the bookplate of Simon Nowell-Smith (1909-1996), librarian at the London Library (1950-1956).
