Harmonium: A Book of Poems (Charles Tomlinson’s copy)

Description

Stevens, Wallace. Harmonium: A Book of Poems (Charles Tomlinson’s copy). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950. 3rd Edition 2nd Printing. Red Cloth. Very Good. xiii, 196pp. Tomlinson’s ownership signature & address is in ink at the head of the ffep along with a number of notes in pencil. The text itself is annotated, again in pencil; at times closely & profusely. On the rear end papers is a 21 line poem in ink. It is intriguing that there is only a year between this book’s publication & the appearance of Tomlinson’s own first pamphlet. Of his first full collection, The Necklace, Tomlinson was afterwards to write “Donald Davie’s generous recognition of it gave one the courage to go on ‘realizing’, as Cezanne has it, ‘one’s little sensation’. The conditions of the realization lay in according objects their own existence. This was what complicated the debt to Wallace Stevens: the poems were both a dialogue with and a departure from him.” The dust jacket, while largely complete, has been internally repaired (with archival tape)