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This first trade edition, first printing, of Frost s third Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection is inscribed and dated by Frost in the year of publication and gifted to African-American poet and playwright Owen Dodson a month later upon his college graduation. Frost signed and dated at the head of the title page "Robert Frost 1936". The gift inscription, inked in four lines on the upper left of the front free endpaper recto, reads: "Class of June-1936 | To Owen | With Best Wishes | From Eunice". Owen s ownership signature "Owen Dodson" is inked at the center of the front pastedown. Brooklyn-born, African-American poet and playwright Owen Dodson (1914-1983) graduated from Bates College in June 1936, where he began writing poetry and directing plays. After earning his M.F.A. at Yale, he enlisted in the Navy and served during the Second World War, during which time he continued to write. "His first poetry collection,Powerful Long Ladder, appeared in 1946 and was widely praised. The next year he began teaching at Howard University, where he remained until 1979."The book itself a variant binding in a beautifully bright jacket would merit attention even if not signed by both Frost and Dodson. The binding is tight and clean with sharp corners, suffering only minor shelf wear to extremities and a slight forward lean. Rendering this copy a variant binding is the absence of the usual gilt title and author print on the spine; instead, the spine is blank. The contents show no spotting and only moderate age-toning. The red-brown topstain retains uniform, unfaded color. There is a rectangle of transfer browning at the lower left of the front free endpaper recto, indicating something once laid in but now absent. Exceptionally neat underling of certain lines in red pencil presumably done by Dodson appears at pages 14, 16-19, 21, 22, 24, 28, 30-33, 37, 38, 43, 48-50, 53, 56, 58, 62, 70, and 71. The dust jacket approaches truly fine condition, beautifully bright and complete with no toning, only the slightest soiling to the upper front flap fold and a hint of shelf wear to extremities. A faint vertical crease along the rear hinge may explain the excellent condition; perhaps the jacket was folded and stored by Dobson while he read the book. The jacket is now protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.A Further Range includes fifty-one poems and is divided into six parts. Some of Frost s best known lyrics are found herein, among them "Desert Places", "Neither Out Far Nor in Deep", and "A Leaf Treader". Although A Further Range, Frost s sixth book of poetry, went on to win the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, "it drew scathing attacks from leftist critics at the time of its publication for its conservative political cast." The political criticism polluted the literary, as politically liberal critics not only criticized the work, but "sought to diminish Frost s reputation" and cast his talent as waning. Although Frost called attention to the topicality of A Further Range "It has got a good deal more of the times in it than anything I ever wrote before" Frost was nonetheless "troubled and angered by these attacks." Perhaps "the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century" Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) eventually won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (1924, 1931, 1937 for this volume, and 1943) and became the first poet to read in the program of a U.S. Presidential inauguration (Kennedy, January 1961). Reference: Crane A21.1, Tuten and Zubizareta pp.128-129; Britannica.
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