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'Rupert John Cornford (1915-1936) was an English poet and communist, the son of Francis and Frances Cornford (née Darwin), and the great-grandson of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin. During the first year of the Spanish Civil War, he was a member of the POUM militia and later the International Brigades. He died while fighting against the Nationalists, at Lopera, near Córdoba. Born in Cambridge, and named after Rupert Brooke, a friend of his parents, he was educated at King's College School, Cambridge, Stowe School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He began writing poetry at the age of fourteen, strongly influenced by Robert Graves and W. H. Auden. He spent a year in London studying at the London School of Economics and becoming a speaker and organizer for the Young Communists. At Cambridge as an undergraduate, reading history, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. He was two or three years younger than the group of Trinity College communists including Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and James Klugmann. Another Cambridge student, who would play a major part in his life, was Margot Heinemann, a fellow Communist. They were lovers and he addressed poems and letters to her. He had previously been in a relationship with a Welsh woman, Rachel (Ray) Peters, with whom he had a child, James Cornford, later adopted by John's parents. A photograph of Peters and Cornford can be found at the National Portrait Gallery, London. From 1933 he was directly involved in Communist Party work in London, and became associated with Harry Pollitt, the General Secretary of the CPGB. At the start of the Spanish Civil War he traveled to Barcelona, and volunteered and briefly served with the POUM militia on the Aragon front, where he wrote his three most famous poems including the often-reprinted "To Margot Heinemann" (originally simply entitled Poem) before returning to England, where he recruited twenty-one British volunteers. With this group he traveled to Paris and then on to Albacete, where they joined the International Brigades?the nucleus of what would become the British Section. He served with a machine-gun unit of the Commune de Paris Battalion, and fought alongside a number of other British volunteers in the defence of Madrid through November and December 1936, including Esmond Romilly. Having transferred to the recently formed British Battalion, he was killed in uncertain circumstances. His best-known poem, usually titled (after his death) "To Margot Heinemann," (included in this book) has been described by the poet Carol Rumens as "one of the most moving and memorable 20th-century love poems". I don't need much space to describe the condition of the book. The condition is excellent. You can see the covers in the photos. There really isn't any significant wear that needs to be called out (see photos).There are a few tiny creases. The edges and corners are in excellent shape. The spine looks very good. I don't see any soiling. The book is solidly bound from cover to cover. The pages are exceptionally clean. I'm not seeing any soiling. I saw two very thin vertical creases, not much of anything. I didn't see any turned-down corners or placeholder creases. There are no markings. No attachments. And no one has written their name or anything else anywhere in the book. The introduction is in Russian with a few stanzas from poems in English, and there is a short final section with Russian translations of the titles and contents. There are 142 pages. The title page through to page 130 is in English. The Sections: I. Essays (Notes On The Teaching Of History At Cambridge; The Struggle For Power In Western Europe; Left?; Communism In The Universities; The Role Of Britain. II. Poems (Poems Written In Cambridge; Poems Written In Spain. III. Letters (Diary Letter From Aragon; Letters to Margot Heinemann. IV. Reminiscences About John Cornford (John Cornford In Cambridge; John Conford In Spain). Seller Inventory # 003851
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