COLLECTED POEMS

First US edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Original dark blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp and fresh, the contents clean throughout. Small ownership blind stamp of Philip Krapp to the lower edge of the front free endpaper (wittily referred to by the author in her inscription). Later bookplate of the Virginia historian and bibliophile Christopher Clark Geest affixed to the front pastedown. In the near fine dustwrapper, showing a few light surface marks, fading to spine, and light rubbing to tips and corners. A nice copy with a lovely inscription by the author.

Inscribed by Marianne Moore in black ink to the front free endpaper, "The book is now owned by an expert – / Philip Krapp, / who has devised the best way / of signifying that the book is his / The placing and style / of this stamp* excite / my envy! / Marianne Moore / November 26 1960" (the asterisk refers to the elegant blind ownership stamp of Philip Krapp at the foot of the page, also marked with an asterisk). The inscription is endearingly characteristic of the author, its witty circumlocution, fastidious footnoting (the twenty-five pages of notes in the book are provided with a "Note to the notes"), and seemingly precise lineation (perhaps even her beloved syllabics, with two lines each of three and five syllables) all combine to make this (almost) a mini Moore poem. The 1951 collected edition of Moore's poems has a complex pedigree. The volume was first issued in the UK by Faber and Faber, 1500 copies being bound at the same time for Macmillan in New York (using the same orange cloth as for the UK edition with Macmillan instead of Faber printed on the spine and title page). These copies, however, except for a small number sent to reviewers and the author, were seized by US customs and subsequently returned to the UK where they were supplied with a cancel title page and issued by Faber (with Macmillan printed to the spines). This copy is the first proper US edition, issued three months after the first UK edition, the cloth a different colour, the wrapper a slightly different shade and lettered solely in blue rather than the black and blue of the UK version. (Abbott A10.b1).