Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Pound, Ezra. How To Read. Desmond Harmsworth, 1931.
Price: US$61.60 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: First Edition (London, 1931). Free from all markings, annotations, and inscriptions. Light tan to pages, else fine throughout. No dust jacket. Red cloth with bright silver titling to the spine. Staining to base of spine, upper right edge of back board, and (a very small patch) to centre of spine. The boards otherwise remain clean, robust and secure. 55pp.
Seller: BBBooks, Poulton-Le-Fylde, United Kingdom
POUND, Ezra. How to Read. Desmond Harmsworth, London, 1931.
Price: US$128.33 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Chipping to dust-wrapper at head and tail of spine, small missing section of jacket upper-right front corner (1cm x 0.5cm) and right edge, otherwise a tight copy.
Seller: Broadhursts of Southport Ltd ABA ILAB BA, Southport, United Kingdom
Pound, Ezra. How to Read. Desmond Harmsworth London 1931, 1931.
Price: US$150.00 + shipping
Description: 1st edition hardback with dust jacket Very Good small octavo 55pp., b/w pls., maps, bibliog., index, Nice copy in like unclipped dust jacket with minor loss at spine
Seller: Andrew Barnes Books / Military Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
POUND, Ezra.. How To Read.. London Desmond Harmsworth, 1931.
Price: US$151.25 + shipping
Description: First edition, first impression, first issue; 8vo; publisher's red cloth, titles so spine in silver, with the dust jacket featuring the magnificent Gaudier portrait of Pound; in the worn dust jacket with some internal repair. With the bookplate of Winifred Henderson, who corresponded Pound in the 1930s.
Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom
Ezra Pound. How to Read. Desmond Harmsworth, London, 1931.
Price: US$170.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: A beautiful copy with one minor blemish - a 1.5" dark line on cover. DJ is bright, with some wear to edges. ; 1st issue, with rough red cloth stamped in silver. Gallup A33a. An unauthorized American reprint was published in 1971 by Haskell House Publishers Ltd. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall
Seller: Loud Bug Books, Indianapolis, IN, U.S.A.
Ezra Pound. How To Read. Desmond Harmsworth, 1931.
Price: US$224.57 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Pound's brief yet cut-throat treatise on the most valuable literature on offer. For anyone coming to Pound wanting a literary education or interested in Pound's doctrine and literary influence, this book is the most important, it provides the signpost. Also included are definitions of melopoeia, logopoeia and phanopoeia as well as the description of poetry as 'charged language'. In 1933 Pound released his ABC of Economics, and in 1934 released a supplement to How To Read, namely the ABC of Reading. This copy is Gallup A33a. First edition; Desmond Harmsworth; [1931]. The slightly later impression, with fine-grained red cloth boards (earlier was coarse) and stamped in black to spine (earlier was silver). Grey dust-jacket printed in red. Very slight rubbing to extremites of boards. Very slight loss to extemities of dust-jacket, now well preserved in a matt plastic wrap; slight fading to spine. Pages beautifully clean, without inscription.
Seller: de Beaumont Rares, London, United Kingdom
POUND, Ezra (1885-1972). How to Read [First Issue]. Desmond Harmsworth, London, 1931.
Price: US$364.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: A spectacular First Printing of this rancorous essay on literary instruction, language, criticism, and much else, including a checklist of recommended writers, beginning with Confucius and down through Flaubert and Rimbaud. Slim crown 8vo (190 x 129mm): 55,[1]pp. Publisher's first issue roughly finished red cloth stamped in silver (the later issue binding was of smoothly finished red cloth stamped in black), fore- and bottom edges untrimmed; grey dust-jacket, priced 2s., printed in red with portrait bust of the poet from a sketch by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who worked in a roughhewn, primitive style that Pound championed. Fine, bright copy in a fine jacket with miniscule rub to base of spine panel.Gallup A33a. 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.).
Seller: Fine Editions Ltd, Lancaster, PA, U.S.A.
Pound, Ezra.. How to Read.. Desmond Harmsworth., London, 1931.
Price: US$875.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition. 'First' issue. Spine stamped in white. Fine in very close to fine dust jacket. (Only the tiniest chips at crest of spine on jacket. ) (55pp. ) ( 5 1/4" X 7 3/4") From the library of John Martin publisher of Black Sparrow Press with his discreet book sticker at base of rear paste-down. Portrait of Pound by Gaudier Brzeska on cover of jacket. ; 5 1/4" x 7 3/4"); 55 pages
Seller: WAVERLEY BOOKS ABAA, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.
POUND, Ezra.. How to Read. London, Desmond Harmsworth, [1931]., 1931.
Price: US$962.45 + shipping
Description: 8vo, pp. 55, [1], with a half-title; a very good copy in the publisher's red cloth (first issue, rough finished and stamped in silver), grey dustjacket printed in red, a few small chips, spine reinforced at head and foot; bookplate of D. G. Bridson (see below); ownership inscription in pencil 'AB' (i.e. Agnes Bedford) to front endpaper.First edition, a fine association copy. Agnes Bedford (1892-1969) was a lifelong friend of Pound (they first met in 1919 and corresponded until 1963 when he unexpectedly severed contact) and through him of Wyndham Lewis, with whom she had an affair in the 1920s. A vocal coach and accompanist, she provided the music for Pound's Five Troubadour Songs (1920). After he left for Paris in January 1920, Bedford sublet his flat; she then visited him in Paris the following year, where she was the principal amanuensis for his opera based on Villon's Le Testament. She was later the rehearsal coach for its first performance in 1931 and her contacts were vital to the casting of singers (Bridson was later involved in the first broadcast of the opera in 1962, for which Bedford was frequently consulted). Laid in here is a copy of a letter of 4 May 1969 from Bedford to Bridson on his retirement 'I have been so happy to read all the appreciative things about you on all sides' recalling 'happy times at Studio A' and Bridson's 'kind friendship & affection for Wyndham'. Pound and D. G. Bridson first crossed paths in the 1930s when Pound included a poem by Bridson in his Active Anthology (1933) they corresponded at that time but they did not meet until 1951 when Bridson, now a force to reckoned with in BBC radio, came to Washington DC to record Pound from his detention in St Elizabeth's Hospital. 'To me, Pound was the greatest living poet', Bridson later wrote in Prospero and Ariel. Bridson produced Women of Trachis for radio in 1954, visited Pound again in 1956 to make some recordings, including 'Four Steps', Pound's famous justification for his support of Mussolini; and then shot a television profile on Pound in Rapallo in 1959. They continued to meet and talk until 1963 as Pound lapsed slowly in silence.Gallup A33a Language: English
Seller: Bernard Quaritch Ltd ABA ILAB, London, United Kingdom