65
65 McALMON, Robert. Corrected proof sheets for The Portrait of a Generation. [Paris: printed at Dijon by Darantiere
Octavo. Original light brown wrappers, front wrapper lettered in dark brown, top edge trimmed, others untrimmed, some uncut. With original publisher’s tissue sleeve (chipped and a little torn). Housed in custom card sleeve with label. With loosely inserted leaf, as issued, “From an h’English Printer to an English Publisher”. A fine copy. £750 [152047]
for] Contact Publishing Co., [5 January 1926] “Monkey-gland voices chatter over your ancestors’ bones. . .”
Corrected proof sheets, with manuscript and typewritten annotations on 23 pages, the majority in McAlmon’s hand, of this modernist poem by a key mover in the Paris expatriate literary scene. The Portrait of a Generation was published in 1926 by McAlmon’s own Contact Publishing Company in an issue of 200 copies. Proof copies of any of the Contact editions are uncommon. Though unmarked as such, this copy originated from the library of the Bullitt family, perhaps acquired in Paris by William C. Bullitt (1891–1967), the American writer who became U.S. ambassador to France in 1936. Bullitt moved in modernist literary circles, was psychoanalysed by Freud, and published a satirical novel, It’s Not Done , in 1926.. Octavo. Unbound sheets with typewritten and manuscript corrections in ink and pencil, 8 gatherings. Publisher’s date stamp to second blank. Small punctures from staple, no longer present, minor loss from staple rusting, going through the first two gatherings, creasing to page corners, light browning to edges; a very good copy. £3,250 [123869]
64
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
47
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker