ROBERT FROST 100: A CENTENNIAL PUBLICATION.

Compiled by EdwardConnery Lathem '51. Boston: David R.Godine, 1974. 114 pp. Hardcover, $10;softcover, $3.95.

This is a compilation of "one hundred items representative of his books and other printed works"" which form a traveling exhibit in celebration of the centennial year of Robert Frost's birth. This exhibit after journeying from Princeton, to Chicago, Austin, Texas, and the West Coast will wind up at the Dartmouth College Library in January: thus an appropriate pilgrimage from Frost's birthplace to the "first college he ran away from."

The book is a back and forth journey through time, too: the first item is "La Noche Triste," RF's first work, published in the High SchoolBulletin of Lawrence, Massachusetts, April, 1890; the 99th, Dedication / The Gift Outright /The Inaugural Address, printed in 1961; then, with item 100 we are back in 1915 with RobertFrost: His 'American Send-off 1915, which traces the story of a batch of poems in TheAtlantic Monthly shortly after his return from England, a booklet which was in production at the time of his death. Included are facsimiles of several poems in Frost's uniquely bold hand. The contents have been arranged chronologically in four sections. There is an introductory note by Archibald MacLeish: felicitous, and, as one would expect, perceptive and generous: "No one needs to be reminded of Robert Frost: eleven years after his death he is still more widely and favorably known than any other American writer of the century."

The little book is no mere catalogue. The compiler, as one would also expect, has gone about his loving task not only with his usual meticulousness but with notes which provide a running commentary on Frost's life and work. Not only that, but he has given us glimpses of Frost's many friends - the friends who have loaned many of the items. The book, in short, is a biography in miniature.

The typography is appropriately by Joseph Blumenthal; the book has been printed by the Stinehour Press and published by David R. Godine. Not even Mencken, who pounced on sleazy indexes, could fault this one: Elizabeth French Lathem prepared it; it is a fitting coda to the book. Which is almost - I say almost in deference to RF's suspicion of sweeping statements and because of MacLeish's and Blumenthal's presence here - a Dartmouth production. I, throwing caution to the winds, don't hesitate to say that RF would be deeply touched by such a memorial.

A Dartmouth retired Professor of English, Mr.Morse was a close friend of RF.