Colossus by Sylvia Plath (39 results)

Condition: As New. Unread book in perfect condition.

Condition: As New. Unread book in perfect condition.

Trade Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Reprint in small trade paperback. Faint crease to front cover, age darkening to spine, text is clean and unmarked. Very Good.

Mass Market Paperback. Condition: Very Good Plus. First Edition Thus. #V-466, with $1.65 price. Tight and crisp with no corner creasing, but with allover modest rubbing to wraps. The poet's first book of poetry to be published in America.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Vintage Books, New York, 1968. Mass Market Paperback, First American Edition as such. Condition: Very Good. Age wear to cover (see photos), else Near Fine. Inside tight, bright, pristine.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. First US edition as stated, first printing. The only book published in the author's lifetime, originally published two years earlier in a different form in an edition of only 500 copies in London in 1960 which now sells for thousands. Full green cloth with author's initials blind stamped to front cover, Knopf's logo blind stamped to rear cover, title in dark green to spine, top edge stained red as issued, lacking the dust jacket. Previous owner's bookplate to front pastedown, covering the remains of a previous bookplate, crack to gutter between endpages and half title but holding nicely, ex-library only apparent from faint stamps to outer page edges, no other markings, a small bit of paper residue to rear pastedown. Light soiling to covers, spine titles rubbed and some tears to the cloth at spine. Uncommon.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. First Thus. Unblemished orange boards and spine, the latter lettered and lined in silver. Crisp, uncreased jacket stained on and beside base of spine 7 cm x 2 cm.also showing on underside; clean rear white panel has a 1 cm x 2mm line near base. Internally ghostly bar of offsetting to both free endpapers. Contents clean, tight and uinmarked. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Hardcover. Condition: Near fine. Dust Jacket Condition: very good +. 2nd Printing. The second printing of the first US edition, octavo size, 98 pp. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), an extraordinarily talented poet, continues to both inspire and fascinate almost 60 years after her suicide. This work, "The Colossus", was the only book of her poetry which was published before her death (the first edition, published in the UK in 1960). The great Irish poet Seamus Heaney famously said of this work "On every page, a poet is serving notice that she has earned her credentials and knows her trade" (n.b., quote from "The Indefatigable Hoof-taps: Sylvia Plath" published in 1988). ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full bright green cloth over boards, poet's initials embossed on the front board within a debossed rectangle, dark green lettering debossed on the spine, top edge stained red; octavo size (8.5" by 5.5"), pagination: [i-xii] [1-2] 3-84, [1, author bio] [1, colophon]. In the publisher's dust jacket showing the original price of $4.00 on the front flap, front panel and spine of blue with white lettering, rear panel white with blue lettering (the poem "Watercolor of Grantchester Meadows"), front flap with review blurbs, rear flap the author bio. ___CONDITION: Volume is near fine, with clean boards, straight corners without rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, and entirely free of prior owner markings; a couple of very small spots of soil on the boards, else fine. The unclipped dust jacket better than very good, clean with some light dustiness to the white back panel, a small amount of overall edgewear most noticeable at the head of the spine. ___POSTAGE: International customers, please note that additional postage may apply as the standard does not always cover costs; please inquire for details. ___Swan's Fine Books is pleased to be a member of the ABAA, ILAB, and IOBA and we stand behind every book we sell. Please contact us with any questions you may have, we are here to help.

Hardcover. First U.S. edition. Hardcover. First U.S. edition. A near fine book in a very good dust jacket. Original green cloth binding. Wear to the extremities of the jacket and at the head and foot of the jacket. Price clipped. Faint owner name on front free endpaper. The first book of poetry by Plath who dedicated it to her husband, Ted Hughes. Stated first edition. Published two years after the British edition with a number of changes.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. First American Edition. 8vo. xi, 84 pp. Publisher s green cloth lettered in green at spine. Minor off-setting to endpapers, a few scattered spots of foxing to inside pages and along fore-edge. Jacket lightly toned, not price-clipped. Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition. Second printing.Near fine but for 0wner bookplate and stamp on frontis. No DJ/.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. The Colossus & Other Poems, Sylvia Plath. 1962. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. First edition. Octavo. First American edition. Green cloth in original dust jacket by Vincent Torre. Condition: Near fine in near fine dust jacket, unclipped ($4.00) and with a few minor chips and small areas of rubbing along the spine head and edges around the forecorners at front panel, section of the rear panel toned but very sharp and bright. Bright clean cloth with publisher's red topstain bright, the binding tight and square. Internally generally fine, marred only by a minor eraser mark to ffep with faint old prices in pencil erased at corner, else fine, without inscriptions, stamps, toning or other issues. An attractive example.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Clean, crisp copy. Dust jacket has normal age wear, in very good shape. Book and pages have little to no marks or wear. Green cloth cover is still a vibrant green. ; 87 pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Very good +. Dust Jacket Condition: very good +. First U.S. Edition. Bright green cloth, black lettering, red topstain, in dust jacket; 8vo. 84 pp. The poet's first book revised from the edition published nearly two years prior in the UK; published here to great acclaim. A fine copy in a nearly fine (complete, not price-clipped) dust jacket with trace wear at crown and half-inch strip rubbed through at the foot. Becoming scarce in collectible condition.

Softcover. Condition: Very Good. Uncorrected Proof. Uncorrected proof of the 1967 Faber & Faber edition, published seven years after the first British edition, which was originally published by Heinemann. Publisher's green card covers printed in black. Near Fine. Toning to wraps at spine and edges. Inked notation to front cover. Light rubbing at corners. A lovely copy and very scarce in this format.

First American edition of Plath's first collection of poetry, the only volume published during her lifetime. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Typography, binding, and jacket design by Vincent Torre. Name to the front free endpaper. An exceptional example. Born in Boston in 1932, American poet Sylvia Plath's writing first attracted notice when she was still a student at Smith College and won the Mademoiselle College Fiction Contest. After attending Cambridge University on a Fulbright grant, she taught at Smith and won a number of prizes for her poetry as well as a Eugene F. Saxton fellowship to complete her first novel, The Bell Jar, which was published shortly before her death in 1963. Plath's first volume of poetry and the only collection published during her lifetime, The Colossus and Other Stories, contains many of Plath's most highly regarded confessional poems, including "The Manor Garden", "A Winter Ship", "Moonrise", "The Hermit at Outermost House", and "The Beekeeper's Daughter".

First US edition, first printing, in exceptionally nice condition, of Plath's first and only collection of poetry issued during her lifetime. It was first published in the UK in 1960. Tabor A2c.1. Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine in dark green, author's initials to front board and publisher's device to rear board in blind, top edge red, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. A fine copy in the like jacket, notably sharp and bright.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. First Edition, First Printing with the words "FIRST AMERICAN EDITION" printed on the copyright page. A spectacular copy. This First Issue dustjacket is rich in color with NO chips or tears and has the publisher's $4.00 printed price present. The book is in amazing shape and appears UNREAD. The binding is tight with NO cocking or leaning and the boards are crisp. The pages are exceptionally clean with NO writing, marks or bookplates in the book. Overall, a stunning copy of this TRUE FIRST EDITION.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. True first British printing with original unclipped jacket (15s). Jacket has faults - namely edge/shelf wear, numerous marks, a little patchy loss (mainly to head of spine/top edge/corners), few small (largest approx. 1cm) tears, creasing/rubbing to edges, patchy browning (including to spine), mild foxing, pushing/rubbing to head/tail of spine, a few small scratches, minor foxing/little creasing/patchy browning to front/back inner flaps, pushing/bumping to corners, patchy browning/odd small mark/minor foxing to reverse (white side), is a little grubby and is in only fair condition. Boards are near fine (having been well protected by the jacket) with a hint of pushing to corners and minor pushing/rubbing to head/tail of spine. Pages are generally clean and the binding is tight. Previous owner's name and date in pencil to front end-paper. Crease to top corner of a couple of pages. Pages little tanned. Occasional small mark/minor foxing to page edges, tops and bottoms. Inside boards/end-papers bit tanned with the odd small mark/minor foxing. Occasional small mark/scattered foxing to pages. No other faults. All books described honestly and accurately. Paypal accepted.

Hardback. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Good+. First. Decorated off-white d/jkt; unclipped; a little marked; light wear to upper and lower edges -- internal repair to upper edge with clear tape; small pencil squiggle on front flap. Green buckram boards, clean and bright; binding tight; gilt titling bright; corners sharp. No offsetting from d/jkt flaps on pastedowns; pp clean.; 8vo (6" x 9"); 88 pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First edition. Original deep green cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine. The first complete volume of poetry to be published by Plath and the only volume published in her lifetime. An extremely clean, bright and solid copy. Now housed in a drop-back box. Fine / Fine.

8vo, original green cloth, dust jacket. Signs of use, but a very good copy in worn and soiled dust jacket. Signs of use, but a very good copy in worn and soiled dust jacket First edition of Plath's first regularly published book. Presentation copy, inscribed by Plath on the front free endpaper: "For Luke & Cynthia / with love - / Sylvia / April 13, 1961." A highly important association copy, rich in personal interest and history: E. Lucas (Luke) Myers, an aspiring writer from Tennessee, was intimately connected to Ted Hughes and Plath. Plath met Luke Myers at Cambridge, where she and Myers were studying, and admired his poetry and fiction. In her journal entry for February 25, 1956, she wrote: "I have learned something from E. Lucas Meyers (sic) although he does not know me and will never know I've learned it. His poetry is great, big, moving through technique and discipline to master it and bend it supple to his will. There is a brilliant joy, there, too, almost of an athlete, running, using all the divine flexions of his muscles in the act. Luke writes alone, much. He is serious about it; he does not talk much about it. This is the way." - Sylvia Plath, The Journals (London: Faber & Faber, 2000), p. 207. On March 3, Plath commented on Myers' fiction: "A chapter - story from Luke's novel arrived, badly typed, no margins, scrawled corrections, & badly proofread. But the droll humor, the atmosphere of London & country which seeps indefinably in through the indirect statement: all this is delicate & fine. The incidents & intrigues are something I could never dream up . . . Nothing so dull & obvious & central as love or sex or hate: but deft, oblique. As always, coming unexpectedly upon the good work of a friend or acquaintance, I itch to emulate, to sequester." - Plath, The Journals, p. 344. Luke Myers was a close friend of Ted Hughes, and it was outside the chicken coop behind the rectory of St. Botolph's Church that Myers rented from Mrs. Helen Hitchcock, the widow of a former rector, that Hughes used to pitch his tent on weekend visits to Cambridge University, from which he had graduated a year and a half before. St. Botolph's rectory "was a poets' haven, anarchic and unjudgmental", with Mrs. Hitchcock "turning a blind eye to the capers, bibilous and otherwise, of her undergraduate lodgers, of whom she was very fond." - Anne Stevenson, Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath (London: Viking Penguin, 1989), p. 73. In February, 1956, a group of young Cambridge poets including Luke Myers, Ted Hughes, Daniel Huws and David Ross, among others, had just put together a little magazine appropriately named the St. Botolph's Review after Luke Myers' digs where they often gathered, and the launch party for the magazine (of which only one issue was published) was to be the occasion for the first fateful meeting between Plath and Hughes on Saturday, February 25, 1956. Plath, who had read some of the poetry by the St. Botolph's group - and two of whose own poems had been criticized recently by one of them, Daniel Huws, in the student magazine Chequer - purchased a copy of the Review on the morning of the party, and memorized several of Hughes's poems in anticipation of attending the party and meeting him. According to Plath's journal entry, after dancing for a while with a drunken, "satanic" Luke Myers, she ran into Hughes. Amid the crush of the party, "I started yelling again about his poems and quoting: â most dear unscratchable diamond' and he yelled back, colossal, in a voice that should have come from a Pole, â You like?' and asking me if I wanted brandy, and me yelling yes and backing into the next room . . . And then it came to the fact that I was all there, wasn't I, and I stamped and screamed yes, . . . and I was stamping and he was stamping on the floor, and then he kissed me bang smash on the mouth and ripped my hair band off, my lovely red hairband scarf which has weathered the sun and much love, and whose like I shall never again find, and my favorite silver earrings: hah, I shall keep, he barked. And when he kissed my neck I bit him long and hard on the cheek, and when we came out of the room, blood was running down his face." - Sylvia Plath, The Journals, pp. 211-212. As Diane Middlebrook put it: "Ted Hughes may not have been looking for a wife that night, but Sylvia Plath was looking for a husband, and Ted Hughes met her specifications exactly." - Diane Middlebrook, Her Husband: Hughes and Plath - A Marriage (London: Viking, 2003), p. 5. A month later in London, Hughes, not wanting "to declare his interest . . . asked Lucas Myers to play go-between. Myers could meet Plath for a drink somewhere, then just drop in on Hughes at the flat on Rugby Street, as if by chance. Myers admits in his memoir that he had taken a dislike to Plath, and that he agreed to this ploy reluctantly. He duly invited Plath to join him and Michael Boddy, another of Hughes's friends, at a pub called the Lamb, in Conduit Street - a poets' hangout - and shortly afterward suggested a visit to Hughes. It didn't take long to see that Hughes and Plath wanted to be alone." Later that night, at Plath's hotel, they spent - in Plath's words - a "sleepless holocaust night" together. - Middlebrook, p. 24. Soon after, Hughes left the job he had in London and moved to Cambridge, sharing a flat with Myers in Tenison Road, meeting Plath every day, and abruptly marrying her on Bloomsday, June 16, 1956 - secretly, with Plath's mother, Aurelia, the only family member at the wedding. In later years, Myers was witness to the difficulties in the marriage, and aware of its tenuous nature. In a measured attempt to explain "Sylvia's behavior and volte-faces between pleasantness and bitchiness" to Olwyn Hughes in a letter dated March 12, 1960, Myers wrote: "I have the feeling that it is best to think of Sylvia as being always pretty much as she was this weekend . . . Ted suffers a good deal more than he would ever indicate or admit, but he.