Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. Full number-line at copyright. Cream boards, beige cloth spine wrap, blue stamped stamped spine titles, lt. shelf wear. Pages fine; no writing. Large, rare photo plate section. Bind fine; hinges intact. Dj fine; protected in new clear sleeve. A loving and admiring companion for half a century to literary titan Ezra Pound, concert violinist Olga Rudge was the muse who inspired the poet to complete his epic poem, The Cantos, and the mother of his only daughter, Mary. Strong-minded and defiant of conventions, Rudge knew the best and worst of times with Pound. With him, she coped with the wrenching dislocations brought about by two catastrophic world wars and experienced modernism’s radical transformation of the arts. A vivid account of a highly intelligent and talented woman and the controversial poet whose flame she tended to the end of her long life. Conover quotes extensively from the Rudge-Pound letters - an almost daily correspondence that began in the 1920s and continued until Pound’s death in 1972. These letters shed light on many aspects of Pound’s personality; the complicated and delicate balance he maintained between the two most significant women in his life, Olga and his wife Dorothy, for fifty years; the birth of Olga and Ezra’s daughter Mary de Rachewiltz; his alleged anti-Semitism and Fascist sympathies; his wartime broadcasts over Rome radio and indictment for treason; and his twelve-year incarceration in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the mentally ill. 351 pages.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall.