Poetry from Johnson Rare Books & Archives

London: Ellis and Elvey, 1900. Hardcover. Sumptuously bound collection of verse by the leading light in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. An inspired but provocative nonconformist, it would be difficult to imagine later 19th century Victorian poetry and art without Rossetti's influence. His writings can perhaps best be viewed as an unusually acute expression of Victorian social uncertainty and loss of… Read more about this item

Washington, D.C., 1872. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Printed by Samuel W. Green of New York in an edition of 572 copies, about 300 of which were bound. A collection of seven new poems, and the significant "Preface" in which Whitman (1819-92) envisions this volume as the first installment of a new collection of an "aggregated, inseparable, unprecedented,… Read more about this item

Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania and Claremont, California: Lawson-Roberts Publishing Company, 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Inscribed by Robert W. O'Brien to Hugh Vernon White, Executive Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, on the front flyleaf, above White's bookplate. An anthology of poetry written by undergraduates and recent graduates of the historically black colleges, with… Read more about this item

Printed for Private Circulation, 1881. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Inscribed by the author on the half-title. Octavo: 76 p. Full burgundy cloth binding, with the original wrappers bound in. The signature of Scottish scholar William Macmath appears on the verso of the front flyleaf. A bit of wear to the corners and tips; else very good. … Read more about this item

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1899. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A collection of love elegies dedicated to the Latin poet's muse, the eponymous Cynthia. Octavo: xiii, 108 p. Original white cloth binding, with gilt titles. Holographic errata to the half-title. Mild toning along the extremities of the boards; otherwise very good.

London: Faber and Faber, 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. Signed by Paul Muldoon on the title page. The Irish poet's eighth collection. Small octavo. Original gray paper-covered boards, with black titles. A near fine copy in a clean and bright dust jacket.

New Haven: Liveright, 1977. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. Review copy, with the publisher's slip and a photograph of the author laid in. An "autobiographical progression in prose and verse" by the daughter of revered modernist poet E.E. Cummings. Includes eight unpublished E.E. Cummings poems discovered by the author as she was completing the manuscript of this book,… Read more about this item

London: Bell and Dalby, 1858. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The author's first major published work, which was largely self-funded by Morris (1834-96) who dedicated the work to his friend, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The poems that make up the collection, many of which are dramatic monologues, fall into three groups. The first group consists of four poems of… Read more about this item

New York: The Ecco Press, 1979. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. Presentation copy, inscribed by Robert Hass to poet and editor Douglas Blazek on the half-title. "Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances." In this, his second collection of verse, Hass (b.1941) eloquently examines the use of language. The recipient of a National Book… Read more about this item

London: George Allen, 1897. Hardcover. Very good. The celebrated Walter Crane edition, limited to 1,000 sets printed on handmade paper. Crane's illustrations for The Faerie Queene were the most ambitious of his career. Overall, they took him three years to complete, and in the end he had finished 88 large illustrations and 135 illustrative head and tailpieces. The… Read more about this item

Paris: Maurice Magnier, Editeur, 1888. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Appropriately enough, Ponsard (1826-94) was associated with the literary circle that met at Le Chat Noir, the Paris cafe founded by Rodolphe Salis. Illustrations by Leon Lebegue, with etchings by Guenier. 12mo. Original light brown cloth binding, with an elaborate celestial scene stamped in silver on the front.… Read more about this item

Beverly Hills, California: Krown & Spellman, 1995. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Presentation copy, inscribed by Paul Naiditch on the front flyleaf. Naiditch was the longtime curator of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles. Original blue cloth bindings, with gilt titles. Issued without a dust jacket. A fine copy.

Paris: Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1970. Wraps. Very good. Signed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the front flyleaf. Bilingual edition of Pictures of the Gone World (1955), with the original English opposite the French translation. Small octavo: 222 p. Original printed paper wrappers, with the original glassine overlay. Some mild toning along the extremities; else very good or better. … Read more about this item

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Presentation copy, inscribed by Adrienne Rich to publisher David Kent on the title page. This volume charts Rich's development as a poet, beginning with the precocious formal poems of her first books (A Change of World, The Diamond Cutters), originally published in the 1950s, and ending with… Read more about this item

London: George Bell and Sons, 1905. Second Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Includes a brief essay on Catullus and Horace. Octavo: xii, 250 p. Original burgundy cloth binding, with gilt titles. Previous owner's ink signature and date to the half-title, with a small bookseller's label to the front pastedown. The spine is lightly sun faded, with a bit of… Read more about this item

San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1958. Hardcover. Very good. Printed in an edition of 300 copies. Finely printed edition of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy (c.1310-14), a supreme meditation on vice, virtue, and humanity's relationship with the Divine that is widely regarded as the supreme achievement of classic Italian literature. The type is a special casting of… Read more about this item

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1968. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. This is number 71 of 500 copies signed by Omar Ali-Shah and Robert Graves. Controversial translation of the classic collection of Persian verse, which rejected the "skepticist" interpretation of Edward Fitzgerald, instead emphasizing the religious nature of the poems. Octavo. Original decorative paper-covered boards… Read more about this item

Easthampton, Massachusetts: Cheloniidae Press, 1981. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. This is Suite Number XL of fifty deluxe copies signed by Alan James Robinson, John McPhee, Gillian Conoley, Gary Snyder, Madeline DeFrees, William Stafford, and Richard Eberhart and accompanied by an extra suite of the prints. In the introduction, Robinson explains he originally planned a portfolio without… Read more about this item

London: Gay & Hancock, 1912. Hardcover. Very good. Edition de Luxe, this is No. 71 of 500 copies signed by Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Dudley Tennant. A pairing of two of the most popular collections by American poet and journalist Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), who is perhaps best remembered for verse tinged with an eroticism that, while rather… Read more about this item

New York: Laurence J. Gomme, 1917. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Limited to 500 copies, with of the contributors receiving 50 copies and the balance going to the publisher. Octavo. Original sage green paper-covered boards over a gray cloth spine, with maroon titles. The bookplate of Philip Yampolsky, an eminent translator and scholar of Zen Buddhism, appears on… Read more about this item