Planet and Glow-Worm

A Book for the Sleepless

Compiled by Edith Sitwell

Macmillan & Co., 1944, hardcover, dustjacket

Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, front endpaper missing, page 51 torn and loose, no inscriptions, price-clipped dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing and bumping, chipping, creasing and tears and small parts missing, closed tears at spine and wraps, discolouration (see photographs)

“This is not a book about dreams; it is meant for those whose “continual cares, fears, sorrows, dry brains” drive rest away; it contains some of the composing and calming beauties that, in the compiler’s own experience, bring a happy sleep in their train.
Here are evocations of a beauty that holds no terror – the flowing rhythms have no more wakefulness in their sound than those of a river.  We are far removed from our daily toil, anxieties and anguish.
Sometimes we are in the peaceful East of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the miraculous translations by Arthur Waley, or we dream in a moonlit cavern, watching the siren swim, and hearing her song with Gerard de Nerval…”