Collected Poems

MONUMENTAL: LANDMARK: NEW First Edition hardcover (Orig. March 3, 2001) Third Printing (April 2001): NEW mylar-protected jacket w/ sharp NEW edges & corners & showing orig. $40.00 pub. price at top-right inside-front flyleaf, NEW black linen-over-boards cover w/ sharp NEW edges & corners, IMMACULATE smooth-cut text-block exterior, IMPECCABLE mauve card-stock end-papers, NEW perfect binding w/ tight sheets, PRISTINE interior printed in Fournier w/ ELEGANT clarity on excellent unblemished archival paper * 6.12" x 9.50" x 2.12", 1.38 kg, xx+888 (908) pp * ABOUT THE BOOK: The publication of James Merrill's "Collected Poems" is a landmark in the history of modern American literature. His First Poems—its sophistication & virtuosity were recognized at once—appeared half a century ago. Over the next five decades, Merrill's range broadened & his voice took on its characteristic richness. In book after book, his urbanity & wit, his intriguing images & paradoxes, shone w/ a rare brilliance. As he once told an interviewer, he "looked for English in its billiard-table sense—words that have been set spinning against their own gravity." But beneath their surface glamor, his poems were driven by an audacious imagination that continually sought to deepen & refine our perspectives on experience. Among other roles, he was one of the supreme love poets of the 20th century. In delicate lyric or complex narrative, this book abounds w/ what he once called his "chronicles of love & loss." Like Wallace Stevens & W.H. Auden before him, Merrill sought to quicken the pulse of a poem in surprising & compelling ways—ways, indeed, that changed how we came to see our own lives. Years ago, the critic Helen Vendler spoke for others when she wrote of Merrill, "The time eventually comes, in a good poet's career, when readers actively wait for his books: to know that someone out there is writing down your century, your generation, your language, your life . . . He has become one of our indispensable poets." This book brings together a remarkable body of work in an authoritative edition. From Merrill's privately printed book, "The Black Swan", published in 1946, to his posthumous collection, "A Scattering of Salts", which appeared in 1995, all of the poems he published are included, except for juvenalia and his epic, "The Changing Light at Sandover". In addition, 21 of his translations (from Apollinaire, Montale, & Cavafy, among others) & 44 of his previously uncollected poems (including those written in the last year of his life) are gathered here for the first time. "Collected Poems" was the first volume in a series that presents all of James Merrill's work—his novels & plays, & his collected prose. Together, these volumes testify to a monumental career that distinguished American literature in the late 20th century & will continue to inspire readers & writers for years to come. * HIGHEST PRAISE: "The lyrics in Merrill's "Collected Poems" ought to last as long as people still care about poetry . . . poetry as alive as Merrill's is why people care." -David Gates, Newsweek "Gigantic & ravishing. What this new volume provides, not w/o a small shock even to those familiar w/ Merrill, is the size & scope of his accomplishment: Monumental" -Daniel Mendelsohn, NYTBR * SHIPPING: MNEMOSYNE carefully wraps, labels & custom-packages this fine book for FREE domestic shipment via USPS MEDIA MAIL or via USPS PRIORITY MAIL for a below-cost additional fee of $14.00 & via USPS FIRST CLASS INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL to all international destinations at our posted below-cost rates or as quoted on request.…