Fernando Pessoa, A Tribute; 10 Poems Translated on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of His Birth by George Monteiro by Pessoa, Fernando; Monteiro, George (Translator); Feldman, Walter (Artist) - 1988

Providence, R.I.: Ziggurat Press, 1988. Limited Edition. Accordion. Fine. Feldman, Walter. Limited edition, number IV of four Artist's Proof copies (total edition 24), folio size, [24] pp., signed by George Monteiro and Walter Feldman. Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) is considered one of the greatest poets of Portugal. "Blessed (and burdened) with a family name that means both person and persona, the poet took to addressing letters to himself that he attributed to an imaginary companion he recognized as 'Le Chevalier de Pas.' He wrote his early poems in English, under his first alter ego or heteronym, Alexander Search; his other major heteronyms were Alvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro, and Ricardo Reis. 'Fernando Pessoa's true life was the interior life of the poet and thinker. What happened to him in the streets, in the Lisbon cafes, in the offices of the firms he served as correspondent, as polemicist - political and artistic - in the journals, or as the would-be lover of a young typist called Ophelia (so aptly named, for this writer with a Hamlet complex) - all this pales before the reality of his interior life, a far and distant land, the bulletins from which are his essays, journals, stories and, above all, poems. In fact, so richly complex was that life that no single identity - and certainly not the self he called Fernando Pessoa ele mesmo - could glean his teeming brain. It took the whole complement of his heteronyms, especially Caeiro, Reis and Campos, to enact that drama within persons (drama em gente) that he called his life's work." (N.B., from the foreword by George Monteiro.) This edition printed by Walter Feldman (1925-2017), an art professor at Brown University who established the Ziggurat Press in 1984. The book includes four poems by Fernando Pessoa himself, and two each respectively by his three major heteronyms, each translation accompanied by the Portuguese text handwritten by four different people, referring of course, to those four major "persons" who authored Pessoa's poetry. The accordion binding was used to retain the four deckled edges of the Japanese paper, another layer of form to reflect the content. ___DESCRIPTION: Original full patterned Japanese fabric covered boards of red with patterns of white dots, bound accordion style, with a black title-label affixed to the upper board, title-page printed in black and red, each page-spread illustrated with colour woodcuts, handwritten text was transferred to silk and hand screened; type was set by Mollohan Typesetting, Japanese Okawara paper, folio size (13 1/8" by 9 1/4"), [24] pp., limited edition, number IV of four Artist's Proof copies, of a total edition of 24, signed by the translator at the foreword and by the artist/publisher at the colophon. Housed in a slipcase covered with black cloth with a repeating pattern of flowers in white, black ribbon pull. ___CONDITION: Fine; crisp, clean, as new and free of prior owner markings; in a like slipcase. ___POSTAGE: International customers, please note that additional postage may apply as the standard does not always cover costs; please inquire for details. ___Swan's Fine Books is pleased to be a member of the ABAA, ILAB and IOBA and we stand behind every book we sell. Please contact us with any questions you may have, we are here to help.