Palimpsest by H. D. (Hilda Doollile) - 1926

Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin. Good with no dust jacket. 1926. First US Edition. Hardcover. Binding is cracked between the two front blanks. Covers have light corner and edge wear and slight rubbing. Page margins are lightly browned. ; Limited to 700 copies. .

Palimpsest by H.D. 1968 Southern Illinois Press, first printing. Hilda Doolittle was a poet and friend of Ezra Pounds, who became her editor. According to the New Yorker: "H.D.'s tense, chiselled verse led critics to describe her, repeatedly, as "the perfect Imagist." Her lyrics extracted sensory abundance from minimalism...She developed a reputation as "crystalline," not just for her poetry but for her physical presence: chaste, ethereal, as lovely and cold as a classical sculpture. Always, she found people who considered her perfect. She attracted devotees, usually younger men who breathlessly affirmed that in her presence they had discovered a Greek goddess incarnate[.]" According to the jacket copy, Palimpsest first appeared in Paris in 1926 and Houghton Mifflin acquired unbound sheets. This edition is based on those sheets plus corrections H.D. made on her copies.
Condition: VG, inscription on end paper.
"He seemed inconsequently to himself, to be penned in some pig-style of illusion."

Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. Hardcover. Octavo. 8.5 x 5.25". 268pp. First published by Robert McAlmon's Contact Editions in 1926. This contains a preface by T. Henry Moore, Note on the Text by Matthew J. Bruccoli, and "Forewarned as Regards H.D.'s Prose" by Robert McAlmon. Hint of fading to dust jacket spine.

Carbondale / Edwardsville Il: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968. 1st Edition 2nd Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. ; Preface By Harry T. Moore; Postscript By Robert Mcalmon; Editing And Note By Matthew J. Bruccoli. Xi, 268 Pp. Yellow Cloth, Spine Gilt. First Printing Of This Well Edited Reprint. Fine In Fine Dust Jacket Priced $7.95, No Wear But 1/2" X 1/8" Dent To Front Spine Edge.

Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. Tan cloth with titlles in gilt, octavo. 268 pages, appendix. First published by Robert McAlmon's Contact Editions in 1926. This contains a preface by T. Henry Moore, Note on the Text by Matthew J. Bruccoli, and "Forewarned as Regards H.D.'s Prose" by Robert McAlmon. Fine copy in a near fine dust jacket in a mylar protector.

Paris: Contact Editions, 1926. First Edition. Softcover. Good/good. [4],338,[1] pp. Publisher's French-folded printed wrappers. Spine chipped, rear (outer) wrapper separated at spine, loss to rear free endpaper, wrappers mildly dust-soiled, half-inch mark above title on front cover. Internally clean. Good. The first edition of the first published novel of Hilda Doolittle, printed by Maurice Darantiere in Dijon for Contact Editions in Paris. From the collection of Brazenhead Books, the "secret bookstore" of the late Michael Seidenberg, to benefit his estate.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin,, 1926. First US edition, first printing, one of 700 copies. This semi-autobiographical triptych of stories shifts between first-century BC Rome to 1920s London and Egypt. Palimpsest was published in France earlier the same year. The work is dedicated to H.D.'s lover, Bryher, and opens with a poem to her: "when all the others, blighted, reel and fall, your star, steelset, keeps lone and frigid trist, to freighted ships baffled in wind and blast". During this period, Bryher herself was "suicidal, struggling with her sexual and gender identities, and angry at the patriarchal system. The two women sustained each other" (Poetry Foundation). Octavo. Original red cloth-backed black and gold patterned boards, spine lettered in gilt, top edge black, others untrimmed. With dust jacket. Lower edges rubbed; jacket a little sunned, unclipped: a near-fine copy. Boughn A8.aii.

Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926. First Edition. Hardback. Author's 1st book. Fine cloth-backed batik boards in a near fine, very slightly edge-nicked and dust-dulled dw, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and sharp-cornered. ; 338 pages; Description: 4 p. L. , [3]-338 p. , 1 l. 20 cm. Limited to 700 copies.

Paris: Contact Editions, 1926. Original wraps. Near Fine. The 1926 1st American edition of H.D.'s (Hilda Doolittle's) first published novel, originally issued out of Paris by Contact Editions. An impressive copy. Crisp and VG+ to Near Fine in its beige wrappers, with very light soiling to the panels. "Printed at Dijon (France) by Maurice Darantiere"

Paris: Contact Editions,, 1926. First edition, first impression, of the first book in the Magna Graeca cycle. Boughn notes that the true first edition, as here, was printed by Maurice Darantière in Dijon. The first American edition used sheets printed in France but was issued later. This semi-autobiographical triptych of stories shifts between Rome in the first century BCE to 1920s London and Egypt. It is dedicated to H.D.'s lover, Bryher, and opens with a poem to her: "when all the others, blighted, reel and fall, your star, steelset, keeps lone and frigid trist, to freighted ships baffled in wind and blast". During this period, Bryher herself was "suicidal, struggling with her sexual and gender identities, and angry at the patriarchal system. The two women sustained each other" (Poetry Foundation). Octavo. Original pale yellowish-brown wrappers with flaps, lettered in black, edges untrimmed. Wrappers soiled and a little toned with a few nicks to lower edges, flaps splitting but holding firm,… Read More