Books

First edition, first printing, of the author's first book of poetry, signed on the front free endpaper. Tulips and Chimneys includes several enduring poems such as "In Just- / spring when the world is mud- / luscious...", as well as two poems on the First World War ("The bigness of cannon / is skilful..." and "O sweet spontaneous / earth..."). This copy also has portions of the front panel and front flap of the rare dust jacket pasted in at the rear, preserving the declaration "There is no line in these poems that is not genuinely alive - or that could have been written by anyone else". Cummings's first book was The Enormous Room (1920), a novel based on his internment by the French during the war. His experience of prison did not destroy his love of France, and after hostilities ended, he returned to live in Paris, there writing much of the poetry published in this volume. In this first book, Cummings's avant-garde approach is already clear. "His eccentric use of grammar and punctuation are evident... though many of the poems are written in conventional language. 'The language of Tulips and Chimneys,... like the imagery, the verse forms, the subject matter, and the thought, is sometimes good, sometimes bad,' wrote Robert E. Maurer in the Bucknell Review. 'But the book is so obviously the work of a talented young man who is striking off in new directions, groping for original and yet precise expression, experimenting in public, that it seems uncharitable to dwell too long on its shortcomings'" (Poetry Foundation). READ MORE Octavo. Original quarter buckram brown paper boards, printed paper label, top edge brown, others untrimmed. Light wear to ends and corners, sound and clean within, very good. .