H.D. called By Avon River “the first book that really made me happy.” In this new annotated edition, Lara Vetter argues that this volume represented a turning point in H.D.’s career, a major shift from lyric poetry to the experimental forms of writing that would dominate her later works.
Near the end of World War II, after having remained in London throughout the Blitz, H.D. made a pilgrimage to Stratford-upon- Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace. This experience resulted in a hybrid volume of poetry about The Tempest and prose about Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Featuring a tour-de-force introduction and extensive explanatory notes, this is the first new edition of the work since its original publication in 1949.
Increasingly after the war, H.D. sought new forms of writing to ex¬press her persistent interests in the politics of gender, in mysticism, and in issues of nationhood and home. By Avon River was one of her only post-war works to cross over to mainstream audiences, and, as such, is a welcome addition to our understanding of this significant modernist writer.
