Miracle and Treadmill [INSCRIBED]
Mexico City: Pyramids Press, 1957. First edition. Hardcover. 1/1000. 119pp. Blue-grayish cloth with gold-lettering on spine in illustrated dust jacket. Minor staining and scuffing on binding. Chipping, staining and tearing on dj. Age toning to pages. Long inscription* by author, covering entire front endpapers, dated Sept. 1,1963. Dj in fair, book in good condition. fair. Item #22174
Contents: Part one: Yesterday The Miracle. Part two: Today The Treadmill. Part three: Tomorrow The Cage. Part four: The day After Tomorrow
* Dear Jerry - Dear Hannah -This is a very bad book. I ought to know. I wrote it. I started being a poet in my middle twenties - far too late, you will admit. I started out being a bad poet, continued as a bad poet and a bad painter for a number of years. Eventually this bad book of bad poetry was published and I was old enough by this time (1957) to know better. It was published in Mexico that year and was received with a riot of silence. Since that time, I have written six books, four of which are collections of poems, and 2 of which are indescribable but delightful explorations of my own experiences viewed in tranquillity through my own jaundiced eye. These books, all of which are as yet unpublished, are myself + I am very proud of them. Should you even have a memorial reading of my works at the N. O. Public Library after I fall down an elevator shaft or dissolve into an alcoholic cloud through spontaneous combustion, feel free to use the manuscripts. At any rate, this is my first book + a very bad one it is. Bear with me - I am becoming a very good poet + a first rate artist. "Come grow old with me, the best is yet to come." You know I really hate Rabbi Ben Ezra + Robert Browning but they do give some comfort to an artist in his middle forties flailing around in the direction of his early fifties. Jerry + Hannah, this is for you. Thank you for your friendship + your loyalty. I don't forget, Lester. (Signed Lester Epstein, Sept. 1, 1963, New Orleans).
Price: $350.00