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Crosby, Caresse. Poems for Harry Crosby. The Black Sun Press, Paris, 1931.

Price: US$1800.00 + shipping

Description: First edition. Copy #29 of 500 numbered copies according to the limitation page. [iv], vii, [v], 28 (printed on rectos only), [2] pp. with tissue guarded frontispiece. Publisher's white morocco and red cloth. Very Good, expertly rebacked with a new spine label mimicking the design of the original, rubbing and soiling to cloth, edges worn. Contents in great shape. A rare title by The Black Sun Press, written and published by Caresse Crosby after her husband's suicide.

Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.

CROSBY, Harry.. The Collected Poems. Chariot of the Sun; Sleeping Together; Torchbearer; Transit of Venus. Introduced and With Notes by D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Stuart Gilbert, and Ezra Pound.. Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1931, 1931.

Price: US$3573.75 + shipping

Description: First edition, first printing, of the first collected poems of Harry Crosby, a commemorative production following his death in December 1929. This copy is out-of-series from a limited issue of 500 copies on Navarre paper (watermarked "Lafuma"). The colophon calls for further copies on Japanese Vellum and Holland Paper, but Minkoff writes that no copies are known, and probably never existed. Harry Crosby (1898-1929) was born the heir to one of Boston's wealthiest banking families, but after serving as an ambulance driver during the First World War he abandoned his wealth to live as an author in Paris with his wife Caresse. They embedded themselves in the avant-garde cultural scene, befriending the likes of Dali, Hemingway and Cartier-Bresson, founded the Black Sun Press which helped to publish the early works of Joyce, Eliot, Pound, and Hart Crane. They lived a life of utter dissolution off Harry's inheritance which, when it ran out, had to be supplemented by telegrams to his banker father such as the infamous, "PLEASE SELL $10,000 WORTH OF STOCK. WE HAVE DECIDED TO LIVE A MAD AND EXTRAVAGANT LIFE", (to which the father, reluctantly but nonetheless amazingly, assented). Caresse continued to publish works by the Black Sun Press after her husband's suicide in 1929, including the present set. Minkoff A42. 4 volumes, large octavo. Original cream wrappers, front wrappers and spines lettered in red and black, edges untrimmed. With original glassine. Housed in the original red cloth slipcase. Title pages and prefaces printed in red and black, portrait frontispiece in Sleeping Together, 1 photographic plate in Torchbearer. A few spots to glassine; a fine set.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom