is in the queer paper volume, and words are no good in
describing it.

As the chief poems in "A Lume Spento" were afterwards
incorporated in "Personae," the book demands mention only as a
date in the author's history. "Personae," the first book
published in London, followed early in 1909. Few poets have
undertaken the siege of London with so little backing; few books
of verse have ever owed their success so purely to their own
merits. Pound came to London a complete stranger, without either
literary patronage or financial means. He took "Personae" to Mr.
Elkin Mathews, who has the glory of having published Yeats'
"Wind Among the Reeds," and the "Books of the Rhymers' Club," in
which many of the poets of the '90s, now famous, found a place.
Mr. Mathews first suggested, as was natural to an unknown
author, that the author should bear part of the cost of
printing. "I have a shilling in my pocket, if that is any use to
you," said the latter. "Well," said Mr. Mathews, "I want to
publish it anyway." His acumen was justified. The book was, it
is true, received with opposition, but it was received. There
were a few appreciative critics, notably Mr. Edward Thomas, the
poet (known also as "Edward Eastaway"; he has since been killed
in France). Thomas, writing in the "English Review" (then in its
brightest days under the editorship of Ford Madox Hueffer),
recognized the first-hand intensity of feeling in "Personae":

He has ... hardly any of the superficial good qualities of
modern versifiers.... He has not the current melancholy or
resignation or unwillingness to live; nor the kind of
feeling for nature which runs to minute description and