Inscribed to an Editor
Notebook 1967–68
Publication: New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969. First Edition.
Notes: An association copy, inscribed to FSG editor Michael di Capua in memory of their mutual friend Randall Jarrell.
The fourteen-line verses in this collection, according to Lowell's "Afterthought," were "written as one poem, jagged in pattern." He describes the book as leaning "heavily to the rational" but "devoted to surrealism."
A chronology of events in 1967 and 1968, beginning and ending with the Vietnam War, places the book firmly amid the upheavals of the late 1960s: the Six-Day War in Israel, the death of Che Guevara, the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the chaotic Democratic Convention in Chicago. Lowell distinguishes between the immediate "joys of living" and "the pain" of memory.
[14], 161, [1] pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (stating, "First printing, 1969" on the copyright page). A near fine copy in a very slightly spine-faded dust jacket with minor edge wear. An attractive copy inscribed to Michael di Capua, an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux: “For Michael, Randall’s friend and mine. Cal.”
Di Capua was a star editor at FSG and had Jarrell as one of his writers. After Jarrell's death, he worked with Lowell on a commemorative volume published by FSG in 1967. Three of the poems in Notebook are dedicated to Jarrell.
Provenance: Michael di Capua; Clouds Hill Books.
Item No: #40974
Price: $2,500