THE CIRCLE GAME by Atwood, Margaret - 1966

Toronto: Contact Press. 1966. First printing. Softcover. The simultaneous paper issue. Octavo, white card covers with flaps, cover drawing in red by the author. pp (ii), 80, (4). Title page printed in red and black, repeating Atwood's spiral cover drawing. Spine, page edges, and margins of covers a bit tanned, especially the rear cover which has a tanned margin of one inch at top and about half an inch at the fore margin; else fine. With the extensive pencil notes in text margins in his small hand, his ink name at front, and laid in sheet of notes, of James Cascallen. James Andrew Carscallen (1934-2016), studied under Northrop Frye for his PhD and was a Victoria University professor 1965-1996. He helped Atwood with some of her early manuscripts and she regarded him as a friend. Atwood took her undergraduate degree from Vic. There were 200 copies of the paper issue and 50 of the hardcover issue. This, Atwood's first major poetry collection, won the Governor-General's Award for Poetry in 1966. It was the only Contact Press book to win a GG (Contact Press was the most important English language publisher of modernist poetry in Canada in its time). Scarce on the market these days. A good association copy. .