THE DOUBLE DREAM OF SPRING
New York: Dutton, 1970. First edition. Hardcover. Cloth-backed boards in dust jacket; small 8vo. 95 pp. Inscribed to Howard Moss, and signed in full by the poet. A nice association copy and additionally as the inscription is dated 1/7/70, a particularly early one. (We have handled a copy inscribed to Hilton Kramer, and seen others inscribed on the same date; The Gotham Book Mart publication party was held a month later on 2/9/70.) The poet's important fourth collection with some of his finest poems: including what is likely his most anthologized poem, “Soonest Mended”, as well as “Decoy”, “Sunrise in Suburbia”, “Evening in the Country”, the long poem “Fragment”, and “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape” (the Popeye in the country poem). An easily very good copy, in a complete (not price-clipped) dust jacket also easily very good with minor wear at the corners. All housed in custom cloth clamshell case with leather label. Very good + / very good +. Item #16236
Howard Moss was poetry editor of the NEW YORKER from 1950 until his death in 1987. It is interesting that Ashbery's first poem to be published in the NEW YORKER was in 1972, a poem that would appear in his next book SELF-PORTRAIT IN A CONVEX MIRROR which would win the trifecta of major awards: Pulitzer, NBA and NBCC. Moss himself would win the 1972 National Book Award and in 1987 the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize for his own poetry.
Price: $950.00