THE WAKING. POEMS: 1933 - 1953 by ROETHKE, Theodore - 1953

Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1953. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine in a Very Good dustwrapper with some rubbing and light edgewear with the remnant of about half of a Pulitzer Prize Winner sticker on the front panel. A superb Association Copy. Roethke's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of his best poems. This copy is INSCRIBED and SIGNED on the title page to Supreme Court Associate Justice Abe Fortas: "To Abe,/with more than/the usual good/wishes to a stranger/Ted Roethke." Fortas assisted Lyndon Johnson in winning his Senate seat and became a lifelong friend to Johnson who appointed Fortas to the Supreme Court in 1965. When Chief Justice Earl Warren announced his retirement in June 1968, Johnson nominated Associate Justice Fortas to replace Warren. Fortas was the first Chief Justice nominee ever to appear before the Senate, and he faced hostile questioning about his relationship with Lyndon Johnson ultimately leading Fortas to ask Johnson to withdraw his nomination. Fortas resigned from the court in 1969 after a financial scandal. With a blindstamp on the second front blank indicating the book is from the library of Abe Fortas and a blank check from Seattle's University National Bank laid in. On the verso of the check in an unknown hand is written: "Dear Abe/Read the book/backwards." In the same small hand next to the printed date on the title page is written "April 27, 1954."