Ezra Pound | Cathay, London, 1915, first edition, inscribed by the author to W.B. Yeats's mother-in-law

Ezra Pound

Cathay: Translations by Ezra Pound for the most part from the Chinese. London: Elkin Matthews, 1915

FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 1,000 COPIES, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO NELLY TUCKER, W.B. YEATS' MOTHER-IN-LAW, 8vo, original printed wrappers, preserved in cloth folding box, light to moderate foxing throughout, wrappers slightly toned and chipped at extremities

Inscribed by the author: "To Mrs. H. T. [`Nelly'] Tucker, | With [...] salutations | E.P. March 1915." Nelly Tucker was a close friend of Olivia Shakespear, Yeats's muse and sometime lover, and was married to Shakespear's brother Henry Todd Tucker. Yeats eventually married Georgie Hyde Lees, who was Nelly Tucker's daughter and Shakespear's niece. This tangled web was further complicated as Ezra Pound—who worked as Yeats's secretary—married Olivia's daughter Dorothy (who was also, of course, Georgie's cousin). Pound and Mrs. Tucker were the only witnesses at Yeats's marriage to Georgie. These poems are Pound's translations of Chinese war poems, such as "The Frontier Guard" (p.16), in which he inserts his own reflections on the war. A very good copy in wrappers.

LITERATURE

Gallup A9