Lot 437
Eliot, Thomas Stearns
Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts
Auction: Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts
Description
The waste land. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922. First edition, number 234 of 1000 copies, one of the first 500 copies printed with the limitation number printed in type 5mm high and bound in flexible black cloth, but also a later copy with the "a" dropped from "mountain" in line 339 (page 41), owner inscription on front endpaper, light wear to spine ends, without the rare dustwrapper, black folding cloth box
Footnote
Note: First edition of one of the most important poems of the 20th century. "Eliot's Waste Land is I think the justification of the modern experiment since 1900" (Ezra Pound). The first edition consisted of 1000 copies: approximately the first 500 copies were bound in flexible black cloth with the copy number on the limitation page stamped in type 5mm high, later copies were bound in stiff black cloth the the copy number 2mm high. In addition, the first copies have the word "mountain" correctly spelled in line 339 (p.41), in later copies the "a" has dropped out. Gallup A6.