New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1912.
Price: $7,000.00
Hardcover. First edition, first printing. Octavo. 316pp. Rebound in full blue morocco gilt by Riviere and Sons. Joints rubbed, else near fine. Bookplate of George Steele Seymour and also that of Eleanor DeForest Smith of Colorado Springs, both on the front pastedown. An anthology of American poetry that includes the first appearance of the poem "Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her poem was widely considered the best submission, but only won fourth place in the anthology, and the resulting notoriety was in large part responsible for launching her career as a poet.
This copy Signed by the editor and judge, Ferdinand Earle (twice), as well as by the other two judges, William Stanley Braithwaite and Edward J. Wheeler, and by the publisher Mitchell Kennerely. Additionally it bears the Signatures of 97 of the contributing poets at the places where their poems appears (the vast majority have signed in the book; a few - perhaps four or five - have signatures tipped-in). Several of the poets have contributed a handwritten poem or have corrected or added to the poems that are printed in the book. Among many others, those who have Signed the book include Zoe Akins, Katharine Lee Bates (author of "America the Beautiful"), William Rose Benet, Witter Bynner, Don Byrne, Bliss Carmen, Madison Cawein, Thomas Augustine Daly (who shared second prize), Olive T. Dargen, John Erskine, Arthut Davison Ficke, Hermann Hagedorn, Orrick Johns (who won first prize), Harry Kemp, Joyce Kilmer, Ludwig Lewisohn, Percy Mackaye, Edwin Markham, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edward J. O'Brien, Robert H. Schauffler, Clinton Scollard, George Sterling (who shared second prize), Sara Teasdale, Ridgely Torrence, Charles Hanson Towne, Louis Untermeyer, George Sylvester Viereck, Blanche S. Wagstaff, John Hall Wheelock, Margaret Widdemer, George E. Woodberry, and Willard Huntington Wright.
Among those who are represented by tipped-in signature or letters are Julian Hawthorne, Richard Le Gallienne, and Vachel Lindsay. Only three of the poets are unrepresented by signatures in the book: Anne Cleveland Cheney, Harold Childs, and Frances Gregg. Additionally the book bears a hand-painted frontispiece, and newspaper portraits of a few of the poets have been tipped-in their poems, causing some modest offsetting on a few pages.
Interestingly, aside from the importance of this volume in furthering the career of Millay, it also bears the signatures of the first three women to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry: Millay, Sara Teasdale, and Margaret Widdemer.
Item #409203
