Between the Covers

Hardcover. First edition. Cloth professionally restored at the spine ends, white painted background on the front board mostly rubbed away, corners rounded a bit, a very good copy lacking the dustwrapper. A significant association copy, Inscribed: "To Susan E. Wilcox with acknowledgement of a thousand unpayable indebtednesses – one of which is that she read this book in manuscript from end to end and helped me in all the final patching – when her own affairs were all too numerous for her. Vachel Lindsay. Dec. 9, 1915. Springfield, Illinois." Beside the inscription is a little drawing of a potted plant captioned "A Daisy For Thee." There are several pencil notes about the text on the rear pastedown, in an unknown hand, presumably that of Wilcox. Wilcox was Lindsay's English teacher at Springfield High School, and to whom (according to his biographer Edgar Lee Masters): "he was attached for life, calling her his best and most understanding friend," and who was probably the first and greatest influence on him as a poet. While Lindsay was both a generous signer, and not averse to penning flowery inscriptions, truly significant associations are not common. The poet's interesting take on the current and future motion picture scene, including a chapter on "California and America."

Item #284554