Three early Cavafy items in the British Library

Abstract

THOUGH the British Library holdings of early Cavafy literature are meagre, the Library has recently had the good fortune to acquire, by donation, a copy of G.Vrisimitzakes, (To ergo tou K. P. Kavaphe, 'The Work of C.. P. Cavafy'). Published in Alexandria in 1917, this slim and unassuming volume constitutes a milestone in Cavafy studies. It was the first publication of Cavafy's poetry in book form attempting to give Cavafy's poetry, which had up till then been known to only a very limited circle of his friends, a wider circulation. It joins the Library's other major Cavafy rarities, two of the poet's collections of broadsheets of his poems which he circulated between 1917 and 1920.