Beschreibung:

POUND, Ezra. A Quinzaine for this Yule. Being selected from a Venetian sketch-book "San Trovaso" . London: Pollock & Co. [for Ezra Pound], 1908. 8° (213 x 136mm). (Lightly browned, most leaves skilfully reinforced at gutter, first and last blanks supplied). Original wrappers printed in red and black, later cloth box (upper wrapper very lightly marked and spotted, resewn, lower panel/spine replaced). FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, ONE OF 100 COPIES. RARE. Although the first issue of A Quinzaine for this Yule bears the statement 'printed and published by Pollock & Co.' on the colophon, it was in fact published at Pound's expense, as Elkin Mathews seemed disinclined to either reprint A Lume spento or publish any of the 'San Trovaso' poems written while Pound was staying in the San Trovaso quarter of Venice in 1908. The volume appeared in early December 1908: 'the poems were thin stuff after A Lume spento . They had all been written in a few weeks, whereas the first book contained gleanings from about five years. Ezra was aware of the collection's limitations. "It lacks, on the surface, the virility. & the vitality of A.L[ume].S[pento]. but it lacks several faults of A.L.S. also", he told Homer [Pound]. "The workmanship is perhaps finer". One of the few attractive pieces was "Night Litany" with its naïve but rather touching delight in Venice' (H. Carpenter A Serious Character (London: 1988), p.101). The present copy bears the misprints of the first issue, noted by Gallup, on pp.17, 18 and 21. No copy of the first issue of the first edition is recorded at auction by ABPC since 1975. Loosely-inserted is a Pollock & Co. publisher's advertisement card, 114 x 88mm, printed in blue, announcing the publication of A Quinzaine for this Yule . Gallup Pound (1983) A2a.