New Directions in Prose and Poetry
Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1936. First printing. Hardcover. Hardcover, in very good condition. An attractive copy, fresh and square. Slight bump to the left corner of the spine's head; one leaf (the pages are unnumbered) with a light diagonal crease, and another page with a previous owner's five words of notes in blue pen in the outer margin. Bound in yellow and red paper-covered boards with black lettering on the spine and front. Item #886
Published when Laughlin was twenty-two years old, and the first issue of what was to become a landmark series of new writing. Though usually described as issued in an edition of just over 500 copies, with about 200 in hardcover, Laughlin said in a speech at the 1992 National Book Awards ceremony that a total of 700 copies were printed. He also mentioned that he sold 150 of them to Frances Steloff at the Gotham Book Mart in New York. This copy has that store's small green stamp pasted to the lower edge of the rear pastedown. Contributors are Wallace Stevens, Gertrude Stein, John Wheelwright, Barbara Deming, Gorham Munson, Ezra Pound, Emma Swan, Jean Cocteau, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, Kay Boyle, Emanuel Carnevali, Laurence Vail, Elizabeth Bishop, Montagu O'Reilly, Lorine Niedecker, Dudley Fitts, Henry Miller, Mary Barnard, Tasilo Ribischka (a pseudonym for Laughlin), David Cornel DeJong, Laughlin (under his own name), Louis Zukovsky, and Eugene Jolas. 104 leaves, including ten pages of advertisements for similar publishers, publications and booksellers. Six-page preface by Laughlin.
Price: $300.00