The Enormous Room (The Cummings Typescript Editions)

"A prose work of literary art. There had never been anything quite like it before and there has never been anything like it since." ―Richard S. Kennedy

In print continuously since 1922, The Enormous Room is one of the classic American literary works to emerge from World War I, in a grouping that includes John Dos Passo's Three Soldiers and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Drawing on his experiences in France as a volunteer ambulance driver, Cummings takes us through a series of mistakes that led to his being arrested for treason and sent to prison. Out of this episode Cummings produced a unique work―a story of oppression, injustice, and imprisonment presented in a high-spirited manner as if it were a lark, a work of new linguistic energy that celebrates the individual and opposes all structures that stifle him.

This edition restores to the work much material that was deleted from the manuscript for the book's 1922 publication and is illustrated with drawings Cummings made while imprisoned in France.

E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) was among the most influential, widely read, and revered modernist poets. He was also a playwright, a painter, and a writer of prose. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he studied at Harvard University and, during World War I, served with an ambulance corps in France. He spent three months in a French detention camp and subsequently wrote The Enormous Room, a highly acclaimed criticism of World War I. After the war, Cummings returned to the States and published his first collection of poetry, Tulips & Chimneys, which was characterized by his innovative style: pushing the boundaries of language and form while discussing love, nature, and war with sensuousness and glee. He spent the rest of his life painting, writing poetry, and enjoying widespread popularity and success.

George J. Firmage edited many works by Cummings, including Erotic Poems; Complete Poems, 1904– 1962; and Fairy Tales.