One of an edition limited to 75 copies printed on Arnold & Foster's handmade paper. 56pp. In brown cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering front and spine. 12mo. Boards lightly rubbed and rounded on corners and spine tips, remains of call number label at base of spine. Ex lending library with elegant bookplate and security bar code on front endpapers, lending sheet and pocked on rear endpapers and small stamp on half title verso, else internally very clean, neat, bright and tight. There is a signature underneath the brief introductory remarks. The only collection of poetry from Fergus McMurdo (aka John Talifer), published posthumously after his early death at the age of 39 a year earlier. McMurdo was a survivor of Dunkirk, serving as Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps and as a Regimental Medical Officer in the Middle East. Phoenix was composed during this time, with the remaining select poems in this volume written after his discharge from the Army. They are the expressions of a mind struggling to find truth and peace in an alien, war-torn world yet possess at mystical beauty and individuality. "John Talifer may indeed be said to have communed with the elusive White Goddess for those are no ordinary poems conforming to set standards of composition".
