Miscellany by Cummings E E, Signed (3 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Photo frontis of Cummings, 9.25 x 6", rough cloth, 241pp, extremities lightly bumped, covers a bit browned at edges, light spotting to front blank and title page but still a nice copy in the darkened, original (but in shreds) glassine. LIMITED TO JUST 75 COPIES (this is #28), SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, E.E. CUMMINGS.

hardcover. Condition: very good. first. INSCRIBED First edition, 2nd issue. Some rubbing to edges of covers, some soiling to rear cover, cracking to top of front gutter. Book very good. Comes in supplied slipcase.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his French translator on the front free endpaper, "For Don Jon and Anne-Marie from Cummings and Marion, June 26 '58". Grossman has pencilled editorial annotations in the margins. David Jonathan Grossman (1922-1990) first met Cummings whilst attending Peter Monro Jack's course at Columbia night school in 1941-42. After serving in the Second World War, Grossman attended Harvard in 1946 and began writing a thesis on Cummings, which he never finished. According to Grossman, this was the start of their correspondence proper. In 1947 he moved to Paris but maintained the friendship; throughout the following years he wrote to or visited Cummings in the US. By 1960 he had published his first translation, and in 1980 he was awarded the Prix Halperine-Kaminsky for his Cummings translations. According to Firmage, there are three states of equal priority. The first, as here, consists of 164 copies with the piano player on page 42 titled downwards. A further 400 copies contain the upright illustration, and 413 copies have the illustration tipped in. The edition also included a limited issue of 75 signed and numbered copies and 50 numbered review copies. Firmage A26a. Octavo. Half-tone portrait frontispiece, photographic plate. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in silver. Contemporary newspaper clipping loosely inserted. Shelf label to front cover. Corners gently bumped, edges a little rubbed, mark to lower edge, toning from clipping to p. 142-43. A very good copy.