Wallace Stevens, 1923

STEVENS, Wallace (1879-1955). Harmonium. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923.

First edition, second binding, of Stevens's first published book of poems. From the library of novelist and historian Paul Horgan. Many of the poems in Harmonium had been previously published in magazines between 1914 and 1923. The first edition sold around a hundred copies, but the slow start would not deter Stevens and in 1955 he would win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems. Edelstein A1.a.

Octavo. Publisher's gray, blue, white, orange, and green striped boards over dark blue cloth spine, yellow paper label (small bump to lower edge). Printed yellow dust jacket (spine panel toned, a little shallow chipping to extremities of panels, rubbing at joints and flap folds). Provenance: Paul Horgan, 1903-1995, author (bookplates and ownership inscription).