if this be treason

Ezra Pound; Olga Rudge, editor

Published by Siena: [Olga Rudge], 1948

About this Item

33pp.; 21.3 x 15.7 cm. Heavy green paper wraps printed in black; stapled.

"If this be treason, make the most of it."

So closed Patrick Henry his speech amid cries of "Treason!" to the House of Burgesses, Virginia, 1765. Henry stood against the Stamp Act, a tax imposed on the American British colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain, which would, as Pound quotes John Adams in Canto 66, "drain cash out of the country | and is, further, UNconstitutional." A dangerous reference by Rudge to the same man who claimed, "Give me liberty, or give me death," this selection of Pound's radio broadcasts, the first to be printed, and taken directly from manuscript, do not so well proclaim Pound's innocence as to proclaim his rightness.

Rudge had not seen Pound for three years and would not for another ten. When considering the care taken over Pound's political material at this date, even the threats William Levy received from Dorothy Pound's solicitors in 1966 for publishing two radio speeches in IT, one has to stress the independence of Rudge in this publication.

Privately printed for the editor in Siena by Tip[ografica]. Nuova, January 1948. One of, Gallup suspects, around 300 numbered copies, most left unnumbered, this one rather special being No. 10. Provenance on request. Front cover and spine faded, rear cover and versos with better retention. Gallup A59.

Seller Inventory # dbr-572

Bibliographic Details

• Title: if this be treason
• Publisher: Siena: [Olga Rudge]
• Publication Date: 1948
• Binding: Softcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine