"In Parenthesis" by David Jones - London: Faber & Faber, 1937 first UK edition first printing - 18cmx15cm - condition: good, original binding, frontispiece present In Parenthesis is a work of literature by David Jones first published in England in 1937. Although Jones had been known solely as an engraver and painter prior to its publication, the book won the Hawthornden Prize and the admiration of writers such as W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot. Based on Jones's own experience as an infantryman in the First World War, In Parenthesis narrates the experiences of English private John Ball in a mixed English-Welsh regiment, starting with embarkation from England and ending seven months later with the assault on Mametz Wood during the Battle of the Somme. The work employs a mixture of lyrical verse and prose, is highly allusive, and ranges in tone from formal to Cockney colloquial and military slang. In Parenthesis is often described as an epic poem. Some critics, such as Evelyn Cobley and Umberto Rossi (who carried out a detailed analysis of Part 7), consider In Parenthesis a destructured novel, not a poem.[citation needed] In his preface and the dedication, Jones refers to the text as a "writing".