lamdha books -
Catalogue of modern poetry

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47675 Auden, W.H. The Age of Anxiety A Baroque Eclogue Random House Inc., New York NY, 1947. First US edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles on a brown label; 188pp., top edges dyed brown. Mild wear; some softening of the spine heel; text block edges toned; newspaper illustration of the author tipped-in to the front pastedown; previous owner's ink inscription to the flyleaf and rear pastedown; ink inscription to the flyleaf verso. Price-clipped dustwrapper is rubbed marked and edgeworn; now backed by archival-quality paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Precedes the English edition by one year. Auden received a Pulitzer Prize for this piece, which served as the basis for Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 (1948). Click here to order $200

97270 Auden, W.H. City Without Walls Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1969. First UK edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 124pp. Minor wear; lightly browned and spotted text block edges; faint offsetting and a few scattered spots to the endpapers. Mild browning to dustwrapper with mild wear to edges; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $60

97290 Auden, W.H. Homage to Clio Faber and Faber, London, 1960. First UK edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 91pp. Minor wear; lightly toned text block edges; offsetting and a few scattered spots on endpapers. Dustwrapper with mild wear to edges with a few tiny chips on lower edge; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $60

74779 Auden, W.H. (Edward Bawden, illus.) Mountains The Ariel Poems, new series Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1954. Octavo-sized folio; stab-sewn paperback pamphlet; 5pp. with three illustrations, one in colour. In original mailer. Mailer has been opened with some partial tearing at one end of flap with remnants adhering to envelope. Click here to order $20

88358 Baudelaire, Charles (James Laver, ed.; Various translators; Auguste Rodin & Jacob Epstein, illus.) Les Fleurs Du Mal/Flowers of Evil - 2 Volume set Avec une Preface de Camille Mauclair/Edited with an Introduction and Notes The Limited Editions Club, Paris France, 1940./The Fanfare Press for The Limited Editions Club, London, 1940. French Volume: small quarto; full leather gilt-decorated and titled binding with blue suede insets to both boards and black endpapers; 282pp in French, untrimmed and top edge gilt, with six plates and many other illustrations, all with loose tissue guards. Rebound: text block edges toned. Original dustwrapper bound in before the rear endpapers. Fine in a like solander box with gilt titling. English Volume: small quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine and upper board titles; 304pp, untrimmed and top edge gilt, with a monochrome frontispiece and 21 plates likewise. Text block edges faintly toned. Slightly rolled. Fine in gilt-titled, mildly rubbed and repaired slipcase. The French volume is number 608 of a limited edition run of only 1,500 copies; the English volume is number 1,184 of a limited edition run of the same quantity. The French volume was delayed seven years in shipment because of World War II, with members not receiving the book until 1947. Click here to order $1200

94251 Beckett, Samuel (Sean Lawlor & John Pilling, eds.) The Collected Poems of Samuel Beckett A Critical Edition Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 2012. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with silver-gilt spine titles; 499pp. Very minor wear. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Fine. Click here to order $50

89707 Berryman, John His Toy, His Dream, His Rest 308 Dream Songs Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1969. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 317pp. Mild wear: slight wear to lower board corners and edges; browning and spotting to text block edges. Rubbed dustwrapper with browning to rear panel edges; some scraping to edges and corners but particularly to spine panel extremities; now protected in archival film with white paper backing. Very good. Click here to order $45

38952 Betjeman, John Summoned by Bells John Murray, London, 1960. First edition: royal octavo; hardcover; 111pp. Mild wear; spotted text block edges; foxed preliminaries and occasional spotting throughout. Slightly chipped and foxed dustwrapper; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $35

214458 Bonnefoy, Yves (Introduction by John T. Naughton, trans. & ed.; Foreword by Joseph Frank) The Act and the Place of Poetry Selected Essays The University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL, 1989. Reprint: octavo; hardcover, full cloth with gilt spine titles; 172pp. Minor wear; text block top edge lightly dusted. Dustwrapper a little rubbed; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Click here to order $45

98522 Bouchet, Andre du (Paul Auster & Hoyt Rogers, trans.) Openwork Poetry and Prose Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 2014. Quarto; hardcover; 320pp. Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Click here to order $20

86129 Brock, Geoffrey (ed.) The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry: An Anthology Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York NY, 2012. First edition: octavo; hardcover; 672pp., bilingual text (English & Italian). Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. A few spots to lower side text block edge. More than a century has passed since F.T. Marinetti's "Futurist Manifesto" slammed the door on the nineteenth century and trumpeted the arrival of modernity. Since then, against the backdrop of two world wars and many social upheavals, Italian poets have explored the possibilities of verse in a modern age, creating one of the great bodies of twentieth-century poetry. Even before Marinetti, poets such as Giovanni Pascoli had begun to clear the weedy rhetoric and withered diction from the once-glorious but by then decadent grounds of Italian poetry. And their winter labours led to an extraordinary spring: Giuseppe Ungaretti's wartime distillations and Eugenio Montale's "astringent music"; Umberto Saba's song of himself and Salvatore Quasimodo's hermetic involutions. After World War II, new generations including such marvellously diverse poets as Sandro Penna, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Amelia Rosselli, Vittorio Sereni, and Raffaello Baldini extended the promise of the prewar era into our time. Surprising and illuminating, The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry invites the reader to examine the works of these and other poets, seventy-three in all. Click here to order $30

81768 Brodsky, Joseph (Nicholas Bethell, ed.) Elegy to John Donne and Other Poems Longmans Green and Co. Ltd., London, 1967. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling; 77pp. Mild wear; top corners bumped; text block edges lightly toned and spotted; heavy offset to the endpapers; previous owner's ink inscription to the front free endpaper. Dustwrapper is well-rubbed and sunned; mild edgewear and chipping; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $75

214063 Carver, Raymond A New Path to the Waterfall Poems Collins Harvill/HarperCollins Publishers, London, 1989. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 158pp. Minor wear; text block edges spotted; previous owner's name in ink. Mildly rubbed and edgeworn dustwrapper; small tear to the top of the upper panel; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $40

214420 Celan, Paul (Walter Billeter, trans.) Breath Crystal - signed by translator Rigmarole of the Hours 3 Ragman Productions, Ivanhoe Vic., nd. (c.1973). Duodecimo; paperback, stapled booklet; 22pp. Mild wear; staples rusted; text block edges lightly toned; signed in ink by the translator to the publications page. Dustwrapper a little rubbed and edgeworn. Very good. Number 141 of a limited edition run of only 300 signed and numbered copies. Click here to order $35

66141 Corso, Gregory The Vestal Lady on Brattle and Other Poems City Lights, San Francisco CA, 1969. Octavo; paperback; 35pp. Minor wear; previous owner's name in ink; toning to text block edges and covers. Near fine. Facsimile edition of poet's first book. Click here to order $20

50634 Durrell, Lawrence Collected Poems Faber and Faber Ltd., London 1960. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles and rules; 288pp. Mild wear; softening to the spine heel; light toning to the text block edges; previous owner's ink stamp to the flyleaf; mild offset to the endpapers. Dustwrapper mildly rubbed; sunned along the spine panel; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $45

44634 Eliot, T.S. Little Gidding Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1942. First edition: octavo; paperback pamphlet, with stab-sewn wrappers; 16pp., untrimmed on laid paper. Minor wear; mildly sunned along the spine; protected in cellophane sleeve. Very good. Click here to order $50

47718 Eliot, T.S. Poetry and Drama The Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture, Harvard University, November 21, 1950 Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1951. First edition. Octavo; hardcover, full cloth with gilt spine titles; 35pp., untrimmed on laid paper. Mild wear; board edges a little rubbed; spine extremities softened; text block edges toned and top edge dusted; offset to the endpapers; retailer's bookplate to the front pastedown; previous owner's ink inscription to the flyleaf; light scattered foxing throughout. Price-clipped dustwrapper is rubbed and edgeworn with some marks; light chipping and some small tears to the spine panel extremities and flap-turns. Good to very good. Click here to order $30

33228 Esteban, Claude (David Cloutier, trans.) White Road Charioteer, Washington DC, 1979. Octavo; hardcover; 63pp. Minor wear; some rubbing to the board edges. Dustwrapper. Fine. First edition limited to only 300 copies. Click here to order $15

43558 Fenton, James Children in Exile The Salamander Press, Edinburgh Scotland UK, 1983. First edition: octavo; hardcover, quarter-bound in cloth with titles on a label; 24pp. Minor wear; text block edges very lightly toned. Protective mylar dustwrapper. Near fine. Click here to order $35

200049 Frost, Robert A Witness Tree Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1945. First UK edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles; 57pp., top edges dyed blue, partially opened, with a monochrome portrait frontispiece. Mild wear; cocked; spine sunned and boards rubbed; retailers' bookplates to the front pastedown; previous owner's name in ink to the flyleaf. Lacks dustwrapper. Very good. Click here to order $30

89034 Hughes, Ted Birthday Letters Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1998. First edition: octavo; hardcover; 197pp. Minor wear; faint spotting to the text block upper edge; some minor marginalia in ink. Dustwrapper. Very good to near fine. Click here to order $25

84704 Huxley, Aldous The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems B.H. Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1918. Octavo; paperback, in decorated yapp covers, with upper board and spine titles on labels; 50pp. (+ 2pp. of adverts) on laid paper, unopened and untrimmed. Top joint cracked; very mild edgewear and discolouration to wrappers; labels spotted and hinges worn; very mild spotting to the preliminaries; text block and page edges spotted. Very good. One of a limited edition of only 500 copies, printed on handmade paper. This is Huxley's third book, after "The Burning Wheel" (1916) and "Jonah" (1917), and is the third in Blackwell's "Initiates" series - "A Series of Poetry by Proved Hands". It contains works by Huxley, along with his translations of Rimbaud and Mallarme. Click here to order $75

56145 Jarrell, Randall (Albrecht Durer, illus.) Jerome The Biography of a Poem Grossman, New York NY, 1971. Quarto; hardcover; 75pp., with many monochrome woodcut illustrations. Minor wear; lightly toned text block edges. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine This book contains facsimiles of the fifty worksheets Randall Jarrell left for his poem, Jerome, the seven engravings and woodcuts Albrecht Durer made of St. Jerome, and an introductions Mrs Jarrell wrote, " Reflections on Jerome" explaining the birth of the poem. Click here to order $30

214461 Keeley, Edmund Cavafy's Alexandria Study of a Myth in Progress The Hogarth Press Ltd., London, 1976. Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles; 196pp., with a map. Minor wear; text block edges lightly spotted. Price-clipped dustwrapper a little rubbed and edgeworn; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $30

66154 Kelly, Robert/Rothenberg, Jerome (Amy Mendelson, illus.) Lunes/Sightings Hawk's Well Press, New York NY, 1964. Octavo; paperback; unpaginated, with four tipped-in monochrome plates. Minor wear; toned text block edges; some minor glue stains around the plates. Very good. Click here to order $35

87624 Kitasono, Katue Black Rain Poems and Drawings The Divers Press, Palma de Mallorca Spain, 1954. Landscape octavo; paperback; unpaginated (28pp.), with colour decorations and 2 plates. Minor wear. Some mild sunning to the dustwrapper. Very good. Click here to order $300

49395 Lawrence, D.H. Nettles Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1930. First edition, second impression: octavo; paperback, saddle-stitched wrappers; 28pp. Mild wear; pages lightly spotted and mostly opened, except for the first two pages; wrappers are a little chipped and embrowned; previous owner's inscriptions on the inside front wrapper and first blank page. Otherwise a good copy. Number 11 in the Criterion Miscellany. Click here to order $20

217539 Levertov, Denise Life in the Forest New Directions, New York, 1978. First edition. Octavo hardcover; quarter bound green marbled boards with beige cloth spine and black spine titling; 135pp. Owner's name twice in red pen. Minor wear; toned and spotted text block edges. Illustrated white dustwrapper with three slim stripes of sunning to spine, and front and rear panel; mild wear and chipping to edges, now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $24

61388 Levertov, Denise Tesserae Memories & Suppositions New Directions, New York NY, 1995. Octavo; hardcover; 148pp. Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Click here to order $17

49576 MacDiarmid, Hugh A Lap of Honour MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1967. First edition: octavo; hardcover; 68pp. Minor wear; text block edges spotted; corners bumped. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $22

97500 MacNeice, Louis The Burning Perch Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1963. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles; 58pp. Moderate wear; slightly rolled; spine extremities softened; text block edges toned; offset to the endpapers; previous owner's name in ink to the front pastedown. Price-clipped dustwrapper is sunned and rubbed with some water stains; chipping to the spine panel extremities; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Laid in: newspaper article concerning the poet. Click here to order $50

90410 Montale, Eugenio (Rosanna Warren, ed.; William Arrowsmith trans.) The Collected Poems of Eugenio Montale W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., New York NY, 2012. Octavo; hardcover, quarter-bound in cloth with gilt spine titles; 794pp. Minor wear. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Remainder. New. Click here to order $30

95556 Moore, Marianne The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore - signed and with correspondence and a collection of newspaper clippings With selected translations from the Fables of La Fontaine The Macmillan Company/Viking Press Inc., New York NY, 1967. First edition: octavo; hardcover, quarter-bound in cloth, with gilt spine titles and blind-stamped upper board decorations; 305pp., on laid paper, top edge dyed light blue. Mild wear; spine extremities softened and corners lightly bumped; offset to the front endpapers; author's ink signature and inscription to the flyleaf. There are also two textual corrections made in ink and referred to in the inscription. Dustwrapper is rubbed with some marks and sunned along the spine panel; some small tears to the top and bottom edges with light associated creasing; protected by a mylar cover. Good to very good in a specially-made solander box with small tear to pocket (now repaired with acid-free tape). Laid in: 1967-1968 correspondence with erstwhile neighbours of the poet comprising four postcards, one folding greeting card, one plain card and one single page letter; and various newspaper clippings (principally from the New York Times), being reviews of the book - one annotated - and articles when she was engaged in social and public occasions. Finally there is typewritten poem by a certain Margaret Lam which was judged by Moore. Click here to order $1800

209868 Moore, Marianne New Collected Poems Faber & Faber, London, 2017. Octavo; hardcover; beige boards with red spine titling, brown endpapers; 453pp. Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Click here to order $30

95642 Mudd, Harvey (Ken Price, illus.) The Plain of Smokes - signed copy Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara CA, 1982. Octavo; paperback; 97pp., with monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; author's ink inscription to the front free endpaper; some stains to the fore-edge. Very good. Click here to order $20

39863 Ondaatje, Michael Handwriting Poems Bloomsbury Plc., London, 1998. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling and a gold ribbon; 78pp. Fine in lightly sunned dustwrapper. Click here to order $25

201188 Paz, Octavio (Michael Schmidt, trans.) On Poets and Others Carcanet, Manchester UK, 1987. First UK edition. Octavo hardcover; black boards with gilt spine titling and black endpapers; 219pp. Mild spotting to upper text block edges. Very good to near fine and wrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Critical essays from over three decades. In the sixteen pieces collected here, Paz discusses a wide range of poets and writers, both American and international, from Robert Frost and Walt Whitman to William Carlos Williams; from Fyodor Dostoevsky to Luis Bunuel to Alexander Solzhenitsyn; and from Charles Baudelaire to Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Breton, and Henri Michaux. Paz writes, "I believe that a writer's attitude to language should be that of a lover: fidelity and, at the same time, a lack of respect for the beloved object. Veneration and transgression." Click here to order $25

88208 Perse, St-John (Denis Devlin, trans.) Exile Bollingen Series XV Pantheon Books, New York NY, 1949. Second edition: octavo; hardcover, quarter-bound in papered boards with gilt titling; 93pp., bilingual text (French-English). Minor wear only; toned text block edges. Slightly rubbed dustwrapper; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Click here to order $30

43568 Quennell, Peter (Albert Rutherston, illus.) Inscription on a Fountainhead - signed, limited edition Ariel Poems series, Number 24 Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1929. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt upper board titling; 16pp., untrimmed handmade paper, with a decorated half-title page and a coloured illustration. Rebacked; boards very lightly rubbed with mildly bumped corners; signed in ink on the limitations page. No dustwrapper as issued. Very good. No 17 of a limited edition run of only 300 copies Click here to order $60

98864 Raine, Kathleen The Hollow Hill and Other Poems, 1960-1964 Hamish Hamilton Ltd., London, 1965. First edition: octavo; hardcover; 70pp. Minor wear; text block edges toned and top edge dusted. Dustwrapper lightly rubbed; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $25

98865 Raine, Kathleen The Oval Portrait and Other Poems The Enitharmon Press/Hamish Hamilton Ltd., London, 1977. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles; 67pp. Minor wear; mild softening to the spine extremities; some slight bumps to the board edges; text block top edge lightly dusted; previous owner's name in ink to the flyleaf. Dustwrapper lightly scuffed; sunned along the spine panel; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $25

88521 Rimbaud, Arthur (John Ashbery, trans.) Illuminations W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York NY, 2011. Octavo; hardcover; 175pp., bilingual text (English & French), with some monochrome illustrations. Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Click here to order $18

66046 Rothenberg, Jerome The Notebooks - signed copy Membrane Press, Milwakee WI, 1976. Octavo; paperback; 50pp. Minimal wear. Fine. Significant association copy: this copy sent to Louis and Celia Zukofsky, then residing in Port Jefferson NY (envelope retained). Inscribed "for the Z's, with regard for their musicks, & warmly, ever, Jerry". A very small notation on the internal front cover gives a date of receival, is initialled "LZ" and notes "ans'd "A"/C." Click here to order $200

94329 Royet-Journoud, Claude (Keith Waldrop, trans.) The Notion of Obstacle - signed copy Awede Brita Bergland, Windsor VT., 1985. Octavo; paperback; 111pp., with some monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; covers lightly rubbed; inscribed to person in gold ink to the half-title page. Near fine. Limited edition print run of only 1,000 copies. Click here to order $25

95788 Saba, Umberto (George Hochfield & Leonard Nathan, trans.) Songbook The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 2008. Octavo; hardcover; 562pp., bilingual text (English and Italian). Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Click here to order $23

83345 Schwerner, Armand Sounds of the River Naranjana & The Tablets, I-XXIV Station Hill, New York NY, 1983. Octavo; paperback; 122pp. Minor wear; slightly rubbed and worn rear cover; faint spotting to text block edges. Very good. Click here to order $30

83355 Schwerner, Armand (Pat Passlof, illus.) The Work, The Joy & The Triumph of the Will with a translation of Philoctetes by Sophocles New Rivers Press, New York NY, 1977. Quarto; paperback; 100pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; lightly foxed and rubbed cover with minimal wear to edges and corners; toned and spotted text block edges. Very good. From a limited edition of only 1000 copies. Click here to order $22

78446 Sebald, W.G. (Iain Galbraith, trans.) Across the Land and the Water Selected Poems, 1964-2001 Random House Inc., New York NY, 2011. Octavo; hardcover; 166pp. untrimmed. Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Click here to order $18

85328 Sitwell, Edith The Canticle of the Rose Selected Poems 1920-1947 Macmillan, London, 1950. First edition thus: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 273pp. Minor wear; boards rubbed; browned text block edges with some light spotting; mild scattered spotting to the endpapers. Foxed dustwrapper with very browned spine; mild chipping to the spine panel head; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $30

98863 Spender, Stephen The Generous Days Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1971. First edition: octavo; hardcover; 47pp. Minor wear; spine heel bumped; mild offset to the endpapers. Dustwrapper lightly rubbed and sunned along the spine and upper panel; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Click here to order $25

85476 Tagore, Rabindranath Fruit-Gathering Macmillan, London, 1916. First edition: octavo; hardcover, blind-ruled boards with gilt upper board and spine titling; 123pp., untrimmed. Minor wear; mildly worn board edges and corners bumped; faded titling on spine; scattered foxing to the preliminaries; text block edges embrowned; previous owner's name in ink. No dustwrapper. Very good. Click here to order $30

94437 Walcott, Derek (Glyn Maxwell, ed.) The Poetry of Derek Walcott, 1948-2013 Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York NY, 2014. First edition thus: octavo; hardcover, with silver-gilt spine titling; 617pp. Minor wear; one or two marks on the text block edges. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Click here to order $40