Harmonium
by STEVENS, Wallace
- Used
- Hardcover
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Cornish Flat, New Hampshire, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Octavo. Pastel-striped paper over blue cloth with paper spine label; 140 pp.; dust jacket. First edition, second state binding limited to 215 copies. This was the smallest print run of the 1500 first edition copies spread across three binding states. With the exceedingly scarce, unsophisticated dust jacket. A Near Fine copy with scant rubbing to board edges and one small stain to top of spine label; page edges a trifle browning along the top and small bookseller's ticket to rear endpaper, else Fine internally. The unclipped ($2.00) dust jacket is Very Good with some surface soiling and a small chunk missing to crown (not affecting title); 1" hairline crack along joint fold. We find zero copies of either the first or state binding with the dust jacket currently in the trade (June, 2015).
Reviews
On Dec 11 2015, a reader said:
Review of Harmonium by Wallace Stevens
5 Stars
Reviewed by Sean Stuart
Date: 12/10/15
I recently purchased “Harmonium”, a collection of poetry by the poet Wallace Stevens. It was his first book and was published in 1923, with 81 poems in the original version all varying in length. I really enjoyed reading it and found a lot of the poems to be about nature. I thought the incorporation of great imagery in the peaces of poetry to be quite enjoyable. I believe Stevens did a great job of letting some of these poems almost come to life in my head filled with images of nature and thoughts of mystery all this while still making a poem that some people could find accessible. If you can’t understand it, or you feel that its inaccessible then at least it sounds like he’s saying it well.
An example of the great imagination and imagery in “Harmonium” is in the poem “Banal Soljourn”. To me this poem creates the scene of the sun rising over a house in the woods and the trees casting a shadow on the ground as it rises, “The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.” (line 2) and as the sun rises it evaporates the moister off the plants so they can open up to the sky, “Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.” (line 4). Another poem that continues with his beautiful them of nature is “Fabliau of Florida”. This poem painted a scene in my mind of a moon lit beach on a cloudy night. It has a feeling of serenity to the poem that might calm who ever is reading it. As I said before Stevens goes into detail with his imagery, in stanza 3 of “Fabliau of Florida” he writes about the top of the ocean and waves “Foam” and the horizon of the night sky meeting together to form one dark canvas.
Foam and cloud are one.
Sultry moon-monsters
Are dissolving
Part of the mystery sense can be found in the poem “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”. The poem leaves the mind to wonder what is happening and for some may let the imagination take over and come to a conclusion on its own. In stanzas 1-6 of “Disillusionment of Ten” he writes:
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
After a second read I found the mystery in it. I think he’s referencing a plane house with plane boring lives “white night-gowns” and because of these plane boring lives they won’t “dream of baboons and periwinkles”. I think Stevens wrote all this with the idea that people who lead boring lives and sleep in plane pajamas will not have exciting dreams, all that being said and the poem still does a great job of filling your mind with imagery.
Stevens does a wonderful job of keeping a reader’s mind on it’s toes. The book “Harmonium” bringing mystery and imagination to life in the reader’s head with many writings of nature. I would say it’s a great buy for any one who enjoys poetry.
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Details
- Bookseller
- D. Anthem, Bookseller (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 02063
- Title
- Harmonium
- Author
- STEVENS, Wallace
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1923
Terms of Sale
D. Anthem, Bookseller
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
D. Anthem, Bookseller
Biblio member since 2014
Cornish Flat, New Hampshire
About D. Anthem, Bookseller
We specialize in radical, fringe, & extremist material.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Second State
- used in book collecting to refer to a first edition, but after some change has been made in the printing, such as a correction,...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Rubbing
- Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
This Book’s Categories
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