Last Poems

[New York, West Stockbridge, Prague]: Thornwillow Press, 1998. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. One of 185 copies, quarto size, [50] pp., signed by J.D. McClatchy and Mariana Cook. James Merrill (1926-1995), known as one of the leading poets of his generation, won nearly every major award for poetry - including two National Book Awards, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of Congress, and the Bollingen Prize in Poetry and the Pulitzer Prize. Praised for his stylish elegance, moral sensibilities, and transformation of autobiographical moments into deep and complex meditations, Merrill's work spans genres, including plays and prose, but the bulk of his artistic expression can be found in his poetry (n.b., from Poetry Foundation web site).

This work, published posthumously, contain the last seven poems Merrill worked on prior to his death (and which can be considered "finished"), here printed for the first time. "Nearly all of these seven poems begin with a sensation - a color, say, or a glimpse of weather...a sense of possiblility. Each poem then moves through a series of implications, a collage of circumstances, towards some larger idea of itself..." (n.b., from the Introduction).

Masterfully printed by the Thornwillow Press, the frontis photograph taken in April of 1992, with specially-designed endpapers by Irena Martens.

___DESCRIPTION: Half-leather over textured paste paper boards, gilt lettering on the spine, top edge gilt, the special endpapers with small decorations of various sea-creatures over paste paper, title page in red and black, Introduction with a three-line red initial capital; quarto size (11 1/8" by 7 7/8"), unpaginated with twenty-five printed leaves, no. 62 of 185 copies, signed at the colophone by J.D. McClatchy and Mariana Cook..

___CONDITION: Near fine, the leather smooth and supple, clean boards, straight corners without rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, and entirely free of prior owner markings; some scattered foxing and a few light marks which appear to be in the paper (not soiling on the surface), else fine. Lacking the slipcase.

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