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126 WILLIAMS, William Carlos. Spring and All. Paris: Contact Publishing Co., 1923 “So much depends upon a red wheel barrow” First edition, sole printing, of this great rarity in the modern poetic canon, including the first printing of “The Red Wheel Barrow” (p. 74). This copy, which has survived uncut and in extraordinary condition, is also inscribed by Williams on the first blank, “Bob Wetterau, best luck, William Carlos Williams, 11/14/50”, to the manager of the Flax book and art shop in Westwood Village, Los Angeles. Williams recorded “a good party at Flax. I read to five ladies in the corner. Anais Nin was there and Man Ray and his wife . . . Later Bob had invited us to his house for supper – voilaille a la Bob with Armagnac poured over it and lighted at the table” ( Autobiography , ch. 57). Spring and All was published by Robert McAlmon’s Contact Publishing Company, and printed by that key printer of the expatriate modernists, Maurice Darantiere of Ulysses fame. Wallace notes of the small print run, only 300 copies, that “many of these may not have been distributed”, and Williams himself later recalled “Nobody ever saw it – it had no circulation at all” ( I Wanted to Write a Poem , pp. 36–7). The rarity was compounded by the fact that copies exported to America were stopped at customs. Very few remain in circulation today, especially in this exceptional condition. Small octavo. Original blue wrappers, front lettered in black. Some mild toning to spine and wrapper margins, single vertical crease down spine with hint of a crack just starting at foot, very minor rubbing at ends, otherwise a near-fine copy, clean within and remarkably uncut. ¶ Wallace A7. £10,000 [157389] 127 WILLIAMS, William Carlos. I Wanted to Write a Poem. The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958
Signed by Williams and inscribed by the editor to her graduate advisor First edition, first printing, signed by the author and inscribed by the editor below Williams’s signature, “and Edith Heal Berrien, both of us feeling extremely grateful to you because without your approval the book would never have been written – (special thank you from your not-so-brilliant-but authentic M.A. – Edith)”. The recipient was Heal’s Masters advisor, Lewis Leary (1906–1990), bibliographer and professor of English at Columbia University. He taught at Columbia from 1952 to 1968, was chairman of its English department from 1962, and wrote or edited more than 40 books on subjects including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. He was awarded the Modern Language Association of America’s Jay B. Hubbell Medal in 1975 for achievement in the study of American literature. Heal thanks him in the introduction to this title: “I am deeply grateful to Lewis Leary, who not only assured me this book should be created but also guided me in the ways of bibliography” (p. ix). The book was the result of a series of informal conversations between Williams, his wife Florence, and student Edith Heal. The conversations were structured by Williams’s works: he would pull his own books from his shelves in chronological order, and the trio would discuss them: “There was an air of discovery about the whole procedure . . . the unexpected appearance of reviews that had been tucked away in the pages of the books, pencilled corrections in the text, scrawled firsts drafts on prescription blanks” (ibid., p. vii). Octavo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in white. With dust jacket. Titles printed in red. Spine ends, corners, and lower edges rubbed, faint marks to rear cover, trivial bump to head of rear cover, a few light thumbprints to contents. A near-fine copy, fresh and square, in the jacket, spine sunned, tiny chips to spine ends and corners, 2 cm tear to foot of rear fold, short closed tear to head of spine and foot of rear panel, edges nicked, a little rubbing to front panel, still a bright example, not price-clipped. ¶ Wallace A43a. £1,750 [157366]
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