Christmas is traditionally a time of peace on earth and  goodwill to men – the perfect occasion for John Bruce Glasier to publish his 1917 anthology of poems, The Minstrelsy of Peace.

Glasier was a pioneer of the British  socialist movement and a lifelong advocate of peace.  He openly condemned the First World War,  which was in its final year by the time this book was published.  In this letter to his fellow Independent Labour Party member Francis Johnson on 16 December, Glasier shows his relief and excitement at the book being ready at last, and urges Johnson to “push it a bit.”

In his foreword to the anthology, Glasier writes that “the  present volume is, so far as the Editor is aware, the first anthology of verse  relating to peace that has ever been published; and it will, he hopes, prove  not only pleasurable for its literary interest, but helpful to the cause of  International Peace, to which it is dedicated.”

This copy of The Minstrelsy of Peacewas originally a  Christmas gift from Glasier to his friend of many years, Ethel Unwin.