Fables Places, Signed (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. This scarce, hardcover, first edition is rarer than usual, being signed, and dated by di Prima ("10.9.63). It has a beautiful double-title page illustration all 18 drawings are by Bernard Krigstein. It comprises 15 chapters, each with fables from a country, specific era, or religion. For example, "Fables from Scotland", Fables from Tibet", "Fables from Medieval Europe", Fables from Islam". Published by G. P. Putnam, New York / Capricorn Books in 1960, complete with with dust-jacket. This book was not printed on superior quality paper (the difference between the endpapers and the text block is noticeable, and so most copies are significantly aged. This copy is in very good condition: The dust-jacket has moderate foxing along the edges and the flyleaf, the silver/grey boards have fewer fox spots and the pastedown is somewhat aged and toned along the edges too. While the interior is browned with age, the pages are clear with no foxing. From the collection of publisher and poet, Kirby Congdon, who, like di Prima, was aligned with leading figures of the San Francisco Renaissance, Black Mountain College and the Beats, and was central to the dissemination of their work, through his small presses; Interim Books, Cycle Press, and Crank Books. This copy of ":Various Fables from Various Places" comes with a detailed file card which Congdon kept for every book in his collection. Congdon and di Prima corresponded regularly, exchanging their publications, and information about the Beat, West Village coffee shop, and Lower Eastside scenes. Through his Chapbooks, broadsides, and pamphlets along with his legendary underground series Magazine, which ran to six issues between the 1960s and 2000s, Congdon elevated the work of his peers, with Magazine containing the first iterations of several Charles Bukowski, Jack Micheline and Gregory Corso poems. A prodigious and widely published poet, Congdon was at the core of the literary and mimeograph revolutions of the 60s and 70s. His own poetry was published in almost every small press journal of the time, The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and many anthologies. He corresponded regularly with hundreds of writers in the United States, Europe and South America, forming a vast network of contemporaries. His archive of correspondence, including copies of the letters he sent, provides a deep and unique insight into the concerns, ambitions, frustrations and activities of those who ushered a new zeitgeist and a pivotal cultural transformation in the United States. Signed by Author(s).