Author: Mearns, Hughes (1875-1965). American educator and poet, author of the poem "The Little Man Who Wasn't There
Title: Creative Youth. How a School Environment Set Free the Creative Spirit. By Hughes Mearns. With a Foreword by Otis W. Caldwell and an Anthology of the High School Verse
Description: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1925. 1925. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1925. 1925. Good. FIRST EDITION OF THE BOOK WHICH COINED THE PHRASE "CREATIVE WRITING" - Octavo, blue cloth titled in gilt on the front cover and the spine, in a printed light bluish-green dust wrapper. The bottom edges of the covers are bumped. The dust jacket is slightly soiled and darkened along the edges. The dust jacket's spine is darkened and stained and the head and tail of the jacket's spine are chipped, slightly affecting the titling. There edges of the book are soiled. xv, [iii] & 234 pages. The text block is cracking at page 111 and here is some light foxing or staining to a few pages. Good.

First edition of this significant work in which Mearns is said to have first coined the word "creative writing".

"In March, 1925, Lincoln Lore, the magazine of the Lincoln High School, in competition with magazines from all over the United States, won first prize as the best magazine of its class, setting a new standard for high school magazines. In this volume Mr. Mearns tells how these results have been achieved.. more than a hundred of the actual poems are reprinted..." -- [Quoted from the dust jacket].

According to D.G. Myers author of "The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing since 1880", it was in Mearns book "Creative Youth", that the phrase "creative writing" was first used to refer to a course of studies: "It was not called creative writing until Mearns called it creative writing. And then, it was rarely called anything else".

William Hughes Mearns was a Professor at The Philadelphia School of Pedagogy from 1905 to 1920. His ideas about encouraging the natural creativity of children, especially young children aged three through eight, were novel at the time. His books "Creative Youth" [1925] and "Creative Power" [1929] inspired teachers of creative writing and influenced a generation of scholars. Starting in 1920 he served for a while as the head of the Lincoln School Teachers' College at Columbia University.

The first edition of this influential book is quite scarce, particularly with a dust wrapper. Good .

Keywords: LITERATURE; CREATIVE WRITING; HUGHES MEARNS; CREATIVE YOUTH; FIRST EDITION; 1ST EDITION; TWENTIETH CENTURY; 20TH CENTURY; POEMS; VERSE; POETRY; LINCOLN LORE; LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL; EDUCATION; SCHOOL; SCHOOLING; TEACHING; EDUCATOR; TEACHER; WILLIAM HUGHES ME

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