C. P. Cavafy: The Unfinished Poems

Cavafy, C. P.; Mendelsohn, Daniel (Tr.)

ISBN 10: 0307265463 / ISBN 13: 9780307265463

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, U.S.A., 2009

About this Item

Cond.: NF / NF. 1st Printing of the 2009 stated 1st US Edition thus, translated, with introduction and commentary by Daniel Mendelsohn. Book is straight, square, tightly and evenly bound, and free of gutter creasing, markings and blemishes. Cover and unclipped Dust Jacket (reflecting original USD $30 price and encased in protective mylar), are clean and bright, with sharp corners and joints, straight heads, tails, spine / backstrip, hinges and edges, boldly legible lettering and crisply distinct design and Translator image. ISBN 9780307265463. ShiroBooks, independent bookseller, takes pride in accurate descriptions, careful wrapping and safe shipping; please contact ShiroBooks PRIOR TO ORDERING if more information, details or photos are needed.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: C. P. Cavafy: The Unfinished Poems
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307265463
• ISBN 13: 9780307265463
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

A remarkable discovery, an extraordinary literary event: the never-before translated Unfinished Poems of the great Alexandrian Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, published for the first time in English alongside a revelatory new rendering of the Collected Poems—translated and annotated by the renowned critic, classicist, and award-winning author of The Lost.

When he died in 1933 at the age of seventy, C. P. Cavafy left the drafts of thirty poems among his papers—some of them masterly, nearly completed verses, others less finished texts, all accompanied by notes and variants that offer tantalizing glimpses of the poet’s sometimes years-long method of rewriting and revision. These remarkable poems, each meticulously filed in its own dossier by the poet, remained in the Cavafy Archive in Athens for decades before being published in a definitive scholarly edition in Greek in 1994. Now, with the cooperation and support of the Archive, Daniel Mendelsohn brings this hitherto unknown creative outpouring to English readers for the first time.

Beautiful works in their own right—from a six-line verse on the “birth of a poem” to a longer work that brilliantly paints the autumn of Byzantium in unexpectedly erotic colors—these unfinished poems provide a thrilling window into Cavafy’s writing process during the last decade of his life, the years of his greatest production. They brilliantly explore, often in new ways, the poet’s well-established themes: identity and time, the agonies of desire and the ironies of history, cultural decline and reappropriation of the past. And, like the Collected Poems, the Unfinished Poems offers a substantial introduction and notes that provide helpful historical, textual, and literary background for each poem.

This splendid translation, together with the Collected Poems, is a cause for celebration—the definitive presentation of Cavafy in English.

About the Author

Daniel Mendelsohn’s reviews and essays on literary and cultural subjects appear regularly in numerous publications, including The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His previous books include the memoir The Elusive Embrace, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year, and the international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Prix Médicis, and many other honors. Mr. Mendelsohn is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. He teaches at Bard College.