First edition, first impression. Presentation copy, inscribed by author on the half-title, "To Stephen Gwynn from Wilfrid Gibson". It is possible the recipient was the Irish journalist, politician, and poet Stephen Lucius Gwynn (1864-1950). This collection features poems inspired by the First World War, in which both men fought. Challenge is an example of "the central theme which characterizes his poetry: the lives of ordinary people... he achieved fame as the poet of the 'inarticulate poor'... he wrote of the poor of town and country in a plain idiom that reflected their plain speech; he spoke for and aroused sympathy for the northern people among whom he had grown up" (ODNB).
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