Collected Prose

INDISPENSABLE: INTIMATE: NUANCED: GREATNESS: NEW Stated First Edition hardcover (Orig. 2004) First Printing: NEW mylar-protected jacket w/ sharp NEW edges & corners & showing orig. $40.00 pub. price at top-right inside-front flyleaf, NEW lemon-yellow linen-over-boards cover w/ sharp NEW edges & corners & scripted "James Merrill" stamp-engraved on front panel, IMMACULATE smooth-cut text-block exterior, IMPECCABLE crimson card-stock end-papers, NEW perfect binding w/ tight sheets & crimson cloth banding at spine-caps w/ crimson silk age-marking ribbon bound-in from the top, PRISTINE interior printed in Fournier w/ ELEGANT clarity on EXCELLENT unblemished archival paper * 9.36" x 6.12" x 1.72", 1.08 kg, x+740 (750) * ABOUT THE BOOK: Following James Merrill's widely celebrated "Collected Poems" & "Collected Novels & Plays", this volume gives us, most intimately, the man himself & his charmingly straightforward exploration of how he became himself. As much as any poet of our time, Merrill conceived of his work & his life as warp & woof, & the prose collected here (from his juvenilia & occasional pieces through his critical writings to his interviews & memoir) shows how bound up in his craft (itself a recurrent topic) were his readings & reflections, his travels & friendships. Even Merrill's most devoted readers will be startled anew at the range of his aesthetic concerns & the depth of his knowledge. Dante & Ponge, Cavafy & Montale, Elizabeth Bishop & Wallace Stevens, all figure prominently here, & the volume is shot through w/ commentary on music, especially opera, & descriptions of the world's great cities (including New York, Paris, Istanbul, & Kyoto) & their cultural treasures. The volume closes resoundingly w/ "A Different Person", Merrill's memoir of his young life, in which he travels to Europe to explore the culture, comes of age as a gay man, & faces down his legacy as the son of the renowned financier Charles E. Merrill. As Merrill remarks to one interviewer here, a poet is "someone choosing the words he lives by". This volume, a cross section of a singularly complex literary life, showcases the care for verbal nuance & the inimitably varied tones that distinguish this great American writer. * ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JAMES MERRILL was born on March 3, 1926, in New York City & died on February 6, 1995. From the mid-1950s on, he lived in Stonington, Connecticut, & for extended periods he also had houses in Athens & Key West. From "The Black Swan" (1946) through "A Scattering of Salts" (1995), he wrote 12 books of poems, 10 of them published in trade editions, as well as "The Changing Light at Sandover" (1982). He also published 2 plays, "The Immortal Husband" (1956) & "The Bait" (1960); two novels, "The Seraglio" (1957, reissued 1987) & "The (Diblos) Notebook" (1965, reissued 1994); a book of essays, interviews, & reviews, "Recitative" (1986); & a memoir, "A Different Person" (1993). Over the years, he was the winner of numerous awards for his poetry, including 2 National Book Awards, the Bollingen Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, & the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets & a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters. * ABOUT THE EDITORS: J.D. McClatchy & Stephen Yenser are James Merrill’s literary executors. J.D. McClatchy has published 6 volumes of poetry & 2 collections of essays. He teaches at Yale & is the editor of The Yale Review. Stephen Yenser has written 3 books of criticism (one about Merrill) & a volume of poems. He is a professor of English & the director of Creative Writing at UCLA. * SHIPPING: MNEMOSYNE carefully wraps, labels & custom-packages this fine book for FREE domestic shipment via USPS MEDIA MAIL or via USPS PRIORITY MAIL for a below-cost additional fee of $14.00 & via USPS FIRST CLASS INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL to all international destinations at our posted below-cost rates or as quoted on request.…