JAMES MERRILL | SHORT STORIES. PAWLET, VERMONT: BANYAN PRESS, 1954

JAMES MERRILL

SHORT STORIES. PAWLET, VERMONT: BANYAN PRESS, 1954

4to (9 x 5 3/4 in.; 228 x 146 mm). Original marbled paper wrappers, stabbed and tied with red thread, printed label on upper cover. Half black morocco gilt slipcase, maroon buckram chemise.

PROVENANCE

Hubbell Pierce (presentation inscription)

LITERATURE

Hammer pp. 553, 1683; Hagstrom/Morgan A5

CATALOGUE NOTE

First edition, copy 18 of 210 copies (60 for sale, 150 "for friends of the poet & the printer"). Presentation copy, inscribed by the poet to Hubbell Pierce, "Hub, a kind of sweetness. Jas. 17 Sept. 1954." Hubbell Pierce was a longtime friend who helped create the wallpaper for Merrill's house in Stonington, Connecticut. When Merrill won the National Book Award in 1978 for Mirabell: The Book of Number, he gave the prize money to Pierce: "Without you how could Mirabell have manifested itself or been given a prize?" The book is dedicated to Merrill's companion David Jackson.

Upon reading the book, Wallace Stevens wrote, "His idea is a prolific one and his poems are neat as pins …. The mere existence of such things is important nowadays although they grow to be more + more like the high beaver hats of our grandfathers."