Varanda, poemas.

Coimbra, Edições "Presença", 1934.. FIRST EDITION. 8°, original printed wrappers (covers foxed; split of 6.5 cm. between front cover and spine neatly repaired). Floral vignette on title page. Lithograph portrait of author by António Carneiro tipped on the second leaf recto. In good to very good condition. Author's signed and dated six-line presentation inscription in green ink on first leaf recto: "Ao Antonio Salgado Jr., // com um grande abraço de esti- // ma e admiração, // em lembrança de velhos tempos // do // Alberto de Serpa // Porto Out.º 1934". Oblong black-on-silver printed ticket with rounded corners of "Esquina, L.da" in upper outer corner of front wrapper verso. (33 ll.). *** FIRST EDITION and ONLY separate EDITION. These poems appeared again in 1944 together with the poems from several other books of verse by the author. The book is dedicated to the poets António Botto and José Régio, and to the painter Carlos Carneiro.Alberto de Serpa Esteves de Oliveira (1906–1992), poet, dramatist, essayist and book collector, attended the University of Coimbra for 3 years but was more interested in collaborating with the writers of Presença than in studying. He published his first novel, Saudade do mar, at age 17, and 2 collections of poetry (Quadras and Evoé), but it was 2 later collections, Varanda, 1934 and Vinte poemas da noite, 1935, that led to his unanimous recognition by critics as an important modern poet. Casais Monteiro says that Serpa, along with Branquinho da Fonseca, Carlos Queirós and Francisco Bugalho, give us "um novo aspecto do abandono egoísta a um eu inadaptado à acção …[Serpa] tem, na poesia, não uma via de contacto com a realidade, mas, por assim dizer, um instrumento a cuja musica embala a sua dolorosa impressão de diferença e de incompatibilidade" (p. 239).After his years in Coimbra, Serpa returned to his native Porto and became an insurance broker. He was imprisoned for political reasons in 1936, and at the same period became once again a fervent Catholic. Throughout his life he contributed to Portuguese literary reviews, including A Aguia, Aventura, Cadernos de poesia, Cavalo de todas as cores (co-editor), Diálogo, Momento, Presença (editor of the second series, 1939-40), Quatro ventos and Tríptico.Provenance: António Salgado Júnior (Porto, 1904-Porto, 1989), literary historian and critic, wrote for Renascença portuguesa. See Dicionário cronológico de autores portugueses, IV, 202-4.*** Casais Monteiro, Poesia portuguesa contemporânea pp. 239-45. Saraiva & Lopes, História da literatura portuguesa (1976) pp. 1096-7. Grande enciclopédia XXVIII, 456-7. See also Fernando Guimarães in Machado, ed., Dicionário de literatura portuguesa, p. 449; Eugenio Lisboa in Biblos, IV, 1276-7; and Dicionário cronológico de autores portugueses, IV, 291-2. For the painter, watercolorist, and designer Carlos Carneiro (1909-1971), see Pamplona, Dicionário de pintores e escultores portugueses (revised ed.), II, 55-6. Porbase locates six copies: four in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, and at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. This edition not located in Jisc. KVK (51 databases searched) locates only the copies cited by Porbase.