Books

First edition, corrected state with the corrected title page spelling "Allen," rather than "Allan" tipped in. Foreword by Allen Tate. The entire first printing consisted of 500 copies, 50 of which were sent out to reviewers before the mistake was caught. The title page was quickly reset and the revised pages tipped in by hand in the 450 remaining copies. Faint bend in the text block, edgewear on the fragile boards, very good in very good or a little better dust jacket with one fold strengthened on the verso. Housed in a cloth chemise and quarter morocco slipcase titled in gilt. Inscribed by Hart Crane: "For John Wolcott In Memoriam the Cleveland days 'Where cuckoos clucked to finches' Hart Crane." The line "Where cuckoos clucked to finches" appears in the penultimate stanza of the second part (of three) in Crane's poem *For The Marriage of Faustus and Helen*, considered by critics to be one of his greatest poems and which appears on pages 37-44 of this volume of poetry. The line apparently suggests the animated conversations taking place at a frenzied jazz club. Crane grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the north tower of his family's large home at 1709 East 115th Street, his "sanctum de la tour." Wolcott was almost certainly one of the young friends who Crane left behind when, at the age of 17, he abandoned Cleveland for New York. A significant copy of the first book (of only two before his suicide at the age of 32) of one of the preeminent and influential modernist poets.