First edition of Di Prima’s first book of poetry and her debut as a Beat, with a “non-introduction by way of introduction” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A bookplate signed by Di Prima is laid in. Ferlinghetti introduces di Prima’s debut: “Here’s a sound not heard before. The voice is gritty. The eye turns. The heart is in it.” One of the few women writers to attain prominence in the male-dominated movement, Di Prima began and edited the poetry journal Floating Bear with LeRoi Jones, and founded two publishing houses specialising in works by avant- garde poets – The Poets Press and Eidolon Editions. Small octavo. Original wire-stitched tan wrappers printed in black, designed by Mike Wiener, edges uncut. With drawings by Bret Rohmer. Dampstain around the lower edge of wrappers, some other minor marks, but a sound copy, internally fresh, and in good condition overall. £500 [151400]
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a translation of “Systema generale philosophica” by François Bayle and Henri Grangeron, this marking its only publication. The original is apparently lost. “Despite a painstaking and exhaustive search, we have been unable to locate either a French or a Latin version, much less a manuscript, prior (or for that matter, posterior) to the English translation” (Easton & Lennon). The treatise has an interesting section on meteors, which the authors take to be all types of non-terrestrial natural phenomena, and has an advanced understanding of rainbows: “A Rain-bow is nothing else but many drops of rain, which receiving the Rayes of the Sun, break them many different ways, and which, after they have thus broken them, return them to our eyes” (p. 104). Bayle (1622–1709) is best known for his Tractatus de apoplexia (1677); the present essay would seem to be his earliest extant printed work. Small octavo (135 × 87 mm). 19th-century half sheep, red sheep label, marbled sides and endpapers, top edge gilt. Complete with terminal advertisement leaves. Front free endpaper with split along head of joint and peripheral chips, title page chipped around edges, a few other leaves slightly frayed, general browning; a good copy. ¶ ESTC R7465; Wing C6281. Patricia Easton & Tom Lennon, The Cartesian Empiricism of François Bayle , 1992. £2,250 [152930] 54 DI PRIMA, Diane. This Kind of Bird Flies Backward. New York: Totem Press, 1958
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53 DESCARTES, René – CORDEMOY, Géraud de. A Discourse Written to a Learned Frier, by M. Des Fourneillis [ sic ]; shewing, that the systeme of M. Des Cartes, and particularly his opinion concerning brutes, does contain nothing dangerous. London: Printed, and are to be sold by Moses Pitt, 1670 RECONCILING DESCARTES WITH BIBLICAL CREATION First edition in English of Cordemoy’s Copie d’une lettre ecrite à un sçavant Réligieux de la Compagnie de Jésus (1668), which attempts to reconcile Cartesian philosophy with the Christian creation story. “Géraud de Cordemoy (1626–1684) was one of the more important Cartesian philosophers during the decades immediately following the death of Descartes. While he is in some respects a very orthodox Cartesian, Cordemoy was the only Cartesian to embrace atomism, and one of the first to argue for occasionalism” ( Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ). The latter part of the edition, with separate dated title page but continuous pagination and register, is
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SPRING 2022
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