Millay, Edna St. Vincent. (1892 - 1950)

Renascence - PRINTED ON WILLIAM MORRIS' HANDPRESS

New York: Frederic & Bertha Goudy. 1924.

Tall slim quarto pamphlet (pp. 16), light blue unprinted paper wrappers, stitched. Housed in a custom crimson cloth chemise with gilt title to spine.  First separate edition, number 67 of an estimated 185 copies initialed by Frederic Goudy, of Millay’s famous poem, printed by Goudy on William Morris’ handpress.

Millay’s “first great poem, ‘Renascence,’ was published in an anthology called The Lyric Year in 1912. When a Young Women’s Christian Association education officer heard Millay read this poem, she helped obtain a scholarship for the talented girl to attend Vassar College” (ANB). It was later reprinted in Renascence and Other Poems in 1917, Millay’s first book of poems. “In 1923 her third volume of poetry won the first Pulitzer Prize attained by a woman poet” (Library of Congress). During an exhibition at New York’s Anderson Galleries in March 1924 of William Morris’ handpress, on which the Kelmscott Chaucer had been printed, “renowned American type designer” Goudy and his wife printed copies of Millay’s poem to be “sold only during the exhibition” (Glaister, 200). Bruccoli & Clark, 267; Yost 22.  Interior fine. Light staining around lower third of blue paper wrapper, with two-inch separation along the lower spine. A fine copy of a Millay scarcity.

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