Octavo. Original green wrappers lettered in black. Spine lightly sunned, foot just bumped with short closed tear to front joint, head of spine slightly rubbed, faint marks to front wrapper. A near-fine copy. ¶ Ruth Franklin, “What Mary Oliver’s Critics Don’t Understand”, New Yorker , 20 November 2017. £2,750 [158824] 115 PHILIPS, Katherine. Poems. London: printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, 1667 “we might well have call’d her the english sappho” First authorized edition of the royalist poet and playwright’s major works, a lavish folio production complete with the famous engraved frontispiece of the Anglo-Welsh author known as the Matchless Orinda and the English Sappho, the latter epithet a nod by contemporaries to the intensity of her poetic celebration of female companionship and love. In early January 1664, a controversial pirated edition of Philips’s works, Poems by the Incomparable , Mrs K.P. , was published by London bookseller Richard Marriott. Although her poems circulated widely in manuscript, and among an increasingly large and influential network, Philips was outraged by their unauthorized appearance in print; by 18 January Marriott had announced the edition’s withdrawal. Philips had mixed feelings about vindicating herself through an authorized version, despite her friends’ best efforts to convince her otherwise, and died prematurely of smallpox on 22 June before any further publication. Charles Cotterell, her close friend and literary executor, saw the present edition through the press three years later. To the contents of the pirated edition, it adds 41 extra poems, a flattering preface declaring “We might well have call’d her the English Sappho, she of all the female Poets of former Ages, being for her Verses and her Virtues both, the most highly to be valued”, a series of commendatory verses by contemporaries, and Philips’s tragedies, Pompey and Horace , translated from the French of Pierre Corneille. Pompey , first performed in Dublin in February 1663 and published in April 1663, made Philips’s name. Philips joins Aphra Behn and Frances Boothby as the only women to have their work performed at the major London playhouses from 1660 to 1680. Folio (267 × 173 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked to style with later black morocco label, floral motifs and single fillet rules in gilt to compartments, raised bands, single fillet border in gilt to boards. Engraved portrait frontispiece of the author. Divisional title page for Translations , separately dated title pages for Pompey and Horace , register continuous. Bound without the final blank. Two early ownership signatures on title page, one Charles Cope and one Mary Delamowaye, untraced. Extremities lightly worn, small chip at head of spine and corners bumped, some marks and stripping to boards but on the whole presenting nicely; frontispiece verso professionally repaired, not affecting the impression itself, after sometime obfuscation of early ownership signature (beginning “Clemen-”), contents browned, with occasional spots and light foxing, a handful of gatherings with faint marginal dampstain or brown stain near gutter, ink splashes on p. 21 of Pompey and closed tear in outer margin of 3G1 not affecting text, lower corner of 4M1 torn at tip. A very good copy. ¶ ESTC R19299; Wing P2033. Paula Losocco, ed., Katherine Philips (1631/2–1664): Printed Poems 1667 , 2017. £6,750 [161187]
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114 OLIVER, Mary. Dream Work. Boston & New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986 Rare proof copy of the first edition, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Provincetown, January 1991. Good wishes to Richard and Rebecca, Mary Oliver”. This, the Pulitzer- Prize winning poet’s darkest and perhaps best collection, includes the first appearance of her most-loved poem, “Wild Geese”. This title was inscribed in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where Oliver spent most of her writing career, and was “regarded as a cross between a celebrity recluse and a village oracle” (Franklin).
116 PLATH, Sylvia. “The Mummy’s Tomb”, unpublished manuscript. 1946 “i recalled the tangled shreds of what i like to call my composure . . .” The original autograph manuscript of a short story written by Plath when she was 14, and therefore an exceptional witness to the writer’s emerging talent. The story remains unpublished, and the only other known version is a later typed manuscript held in the author’s papers at the Lilly Library. It was not until August 1950 that Plath’s first story was published in a periodical. By then the teenage Plath had received a number of rejections for her literary submissions. The present manuscript is dated between her first appearance in print for poetry and her first appearance of prose. The inspiration for the story is undoubtedly revealed in a letter from Plath to Margot Loungway Drekmeier, from 1945. Plath writes “a few months ago I went to the Art Museum . . . there were various Egyptian relics . . . A queer old man came up silently and said . . . ‘I’m keeper here and l have something . . . that may be of interest to you’. Off he went into a dark corridor. I immediately wanted to go home . . . In a few minutes the old man walked back [and] . . . lead us over to the showcase. In the case there were various types of . . . Egyptian jewelry . . . One little box contained an agate eye! It looked, (to shivering me) like the real thing. The man cackled when he saw my terror . . . So you see what influence such things have on peoples lives. Sometimes when I go to sleep I see in my dreams eyes coming toward me at a terrific rate and whizzing past just in time . . . Take my advice – never take eyes too lightly. They really are supernatural sometimes” (Steinberg and Kukil). This short story is discussed by Andrew Wilson in his study of Plath’s early work: “In February [1946], she started to keep a dream book, noting her nighttime visions of escape . . .
More often than not she suffered from grotesque nightmares. The bad dreams continued all year: visions of dead bodies, of murder, of unspeakable atrocities. In May . . . she started to write a three-page murder mystery called ‘The Mummy’s Tomb,’ about a young girl who is fascinated by ancient Egypt and who one day goes to a museum to do some research. There, she notices the stench of decomposing flesh coming from one of the mummy cases . . . Gothic stories such as ‘The Mummy’s Tomb’ gave the young Plath an outlet through which she could express some of the toxic feelings that, at times, astonished and frightened her” (Wilson). Kathleen Connors also notes this short story and states the importance of eyes in Plath’s work: “The act of seeing and the eye itself, the catalyst for much of her inspiration, would also become a common image in many texts. A 1946 three-page story titled ‘The Mummy’s Tomb,’ for example, revolved around the image of the villain’s evil eye glowing in the dark. The story is told from the perspective of a girl locked into a museum at night who manages to escape the clutches of a murderous museum stalker and bring him to justice” (Connors). Provenance: from the author’s estate (cf. Sotheby’s, New York, 6 April 1982; Sotheby’s, New York, 2 December, 2014). Four pages on two leaves (279 × 216 mm), pencil in a neat and legible hand, some evidence of erasing of pencil and correction of text, occasional words added to text, one deletion of a phrase, addition of paragraph markings, titled, signed and dated (“The Mummy’s Tomb by Sylvia Plath, May 17, 1946”) at head of first page. Housed in a custom red morocco-backed folding case. Some light foxing, minor wear to some edges, some folds; a near-fine manuscript. ¶ Kathleen Connors, “Visual Art in the Life of Sylvia Plath: Mining Riches in the Lilly and Smith Archives”, The Unraveling Archive: Essays on Sylvia Plath , 2007; Peter K Steinberg and Karen Kukil, ed., The Letters of Sylvia Plath. Volume I: 1940–1956 , 2017; Andrew Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted , 2013. £18,500 [150374]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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