EIGHT HARVARD POETS
New York: Laurence J. Gomme, 1917. First Edition. Hardcover. Limited to 500 copies, with of the contributors receiving 50 copies and the balance going to the publisher. Octavo. Original sage green paper-covered boards over a gray cloth spine, with maroon titles. The bookplate of Philip Yampolsky, an eminent translator and scholar of Zen Buddhism, appears on the front pastedown. A bit of mild wear to the extremities, including a small nick to the top edge of the rear board; otherwise very good. Firmage A1.
Cummings’ first appearance in book form, containing four sonnets and four free verse poems by him, alongside the work of John Dos Passos, Robert Hillyer, Stewart Mitchell, and four other Harvard classmates. The most outstanding of Cummings’ contributions, the poem that begins “Tumbling hair / picker of buttercups,” is a brilliant meditation on the betrayal of innocence and the vulnerability of beauty, cast within the classical allusion to the abduction of Persephone by Hades. Very good. Item #75547
Price: $500.00