What Are Legends, A Clarification

Dick Higgins

Published by Paper Editions Corporation, New York, 1960

About this Item

Dick Higgins, What Are Legends, A Clarification by Dick Higgins, Paper Editions Corporation, New York, 1960. 215 x 140mm. 48pp. Soft cover, staple-bound artist s book printed black on white with handlettered text and black and red design on cover. Illustrations by Bern Porter. "What Are Legends(1960), my first book, is the theoretical text which goes withLegends and Fishnets(1958-60, 1969; published in 1976). It exemplifies my near-obsession with unifying my theory and practice, written as it is in my "legend" style; this style uses few verbs in the indicative mode, substituting participles wherever possible, in order to get a pictorial effect in words. Important conceptual models to me were certain late Latin poems in which strings of participles provide the movement of the poem (e.g., the "Stabat Mater") and the last part of the De Quincey "English Mail Coach," as well as the obvious modernist texts by Gertrude Stein and others. I printed it myself when I was at the Manhattan School of Printing, using a handlettered text and found-illustrations by Bern Porter, a highly original graphic artist and writer from Maine whose work I have admired for many years," (Dick Higgins). Some marks and foxing to covers as seen internally, Very Good Plus.

Seller Inventory # 68770972

Bibliographic Details

• Title: What Are Legends, A Clarification
• Publisher: Paper Editions Corporation, New York
• Publication Date: 1960
• Condition: Very good +