Rhymes of a PFC [Inscribed to Edith Sedwick Gibson] [Baldpate]

New York: New Directions, 1964. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Edition (so stated). Square 8vo: [viii],179,[1]pp. Publisher's finely woven beige cloth, spine lettered in black, brown paper-covered boards decorated in blind with PFC stripes, brown laid end papers, brown pictorial dust jacket printed in yellow and black. Fine in a just about Fine jacket, lightly rubbed. Inscribed by Kirstein on the front fly-leaf to Edith Sedwick Gibson (August '67) "talking about Louis [Agassiz] Shaw—Baldpate, p. 157." Shaw, grandson of the Harvard paleontologist, geologist and innovator in the study of Earth's natural history, was a dancer turned psychiatrist who lived in Newton, Mass. Baldpate was a sanitarium in Georgetown, Mass, where Shaw may have practiced. Kirstein's reference to p. 157 remains obscure. Simmonds, Silverstein & Lassalle 12. Best known for his long association with the New York City Ballet, which he founded with George Balanchine, Kirstein was also a distinguished author and editor. As a Harvard undergraduate, he founded one of the finest literary journals of its time, Hound and Horn, and in 1964 he published this volume of poetry. Though he was never in combat—after enlisting in 1943, he was sent to London for the U. S. Arts and Monuments Commission, then to France (landing three weeks after D-day), and after being promoted to Private First Class (in Patton's Third Army), on to Germany, where he worked retrieving artworks around Munich and in the salt mines at Altaussee—he was in close contact with troops who were, and the poems in Rhymes of a PFC are based on what he observed: by turns grim, ribald and bizarre anecdotes about officers, troop trains, official chores, hospitals, brothels, the griminess and boredom of war. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).