Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Ezra Pound. Section: Rock-Drill 85-95 De Los Cantares. New Directions, 1955.
Price: US$55.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Section: Rock-Drill 85-95 De Los Cantares POUND, EZRA New Directions. Milan, All'insegna del pesce d'oro [Scheiwiller], 1955 One of only 500 copies originally printed. VERY GOOD CONDITION. Hard Cover. Moderate discoloration with age, especially along spine. No other notable flaws or wear. All pages intact and in great condition. 8 oz 8.25 x 5.25" This piece of literature belonged in the personal library collection of renowned American poet, critic, and Princeton professor, Theodore (Ted) Weiss (1916-2003), and wife Reneé Weiss (1924-2021), who collectively edited the well-known Quarterly Review of Literature Magazine (QRL) for sixty years.
Seller: FITZ BOOKS AND WAFFLES, Buffalo, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$109.56 + shipping
Description: First edition. (6), 107 (2) pp. Publisher's illustrated boards. No dust-jacket. Small damages to head and tail hinges. Owner's name on first free endpaper. This is no. 221. Printed in an numbered edition of 500 copies.
Seller: Rönnells Antikvariat AB, Stockholm, Sweden
Price: US$148.83 + shipping
Description: 107, (2)pp. Orig. boards with clear acetate dustcover. First edition. One of 500 numbered copies. - Spine slightly browned. Two minor tears to upper and lower front hinge. Corners a bit bumped. Dedication in pencil on ffep. Otherwise a very good copy.
Seller: Manfred Nosbuesch, Kuchenheim, Germany
Pound, Ezra.. Section: Rock-Drill. 85-95 de los cantares.. Milano All`Insegna del Pesce d`Oro, 1955.
Price: US$165.36 + shipping
Description: 107 pp. Original printed wrappers with clear unprinted dust jacket. First Edition. - One of 500 numbered copies. - Paper and spine slightly browned. Gewicht (Gramm): 302
Seller: Müller & Gräff e.K., Stuttgart, Germany
POUND, Ezra.. Section: Rock Drill 85-95 de los cantares.. Milan All'insegna del pesce d'oro, 1955.
Price: US$181.50 + shipping
Description: First edition, number 286 of 500 copies; 8vo; title printed in red and black, unmarked internally; publisher's grey boards printed in black and brown, corners slightly bumped, with the original dustjacket; near-fine. Number 286 of 500 copies. This section of the Cantos derives its name from the title of a review by Wyndham Lewis in the New Stateman and Nation (7 April 1951): 'The Rock Drill,' itself is a reference to Jacob Epstein's sculpture of the same name. Gallup A70a.
Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom
Pound, Ezra. Section: Rock-Drill 85-95 der los cantares. Milan; All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro;, 1955.
Price: US$192.41 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing. Number 461 of 500 copies. Very good in grey cloth. Some general wear and a small split to the bottom of the spine. Acetate dustjacket slightly chipped. Original Italian catalogue laid in.
Seller: timkcbooks (Member of Booksellers Association), Penzance, United Kingdom
POUND, Ezra. Section: Rock-Drill 85-95 de los cantares. All'Insegna del Pesce D'Oro, Milano, 1955.
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition. Illustrated papercovered boards. Bottom corners very slightly bumped, still fine in a chipped, very good example of the original unprinted glassine dustwrapper. One of 500 numbered copies.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
POUND, Ezra. Section: Rock-Drill 85-95 de los cantares. All'Insegna Del Pesce D'oro, Milano, 1955.
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition. Octavo. 109pp. Gray paper-covered boards. A fine copy in fine, publisher's unprinted acetate dust jacket. Nicely printed by Stamperia Valdonega, in Verona, Italy. Limited to 500 numbered copies.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$577.24 + shipping
Description: 8vo, pp. [6], 107, [3]; a fine copy in the publisher's grey boards, printed in black and brown, melinex jacket (cockled but no chips); tipped-in 4-page catalogue of works by Pound for Edizioni Scheiwiller, 1955; with a further 24-page general catalogue for Spring 1959, laid in loose; booklabel of the BBC producer D. G. Bridson, who knew both Pound and Goacher well.First edition, No. 347 of 500 copies, inscribed on the front free endpaper 'To Geoffrey, "in alta stima" from D. / 6. 7. 56.', with Bridson's note identifying this as the actor and producer Denis Goacher. Pound had been at work on Cantos 85-95, Section: Rock Drill, since 1946, but it was completed in a burst of activity in 1954 and the manuscript sent for publication by a relative unknown, the 20-year old Milanese Vanni Schweiller, with whom Pound would go on to publish numerous other works. Denis Goacher had appeared in Bridson's production of the Women of Trachis, Pound's adaptation of Sophocles, for the Third Programme in 1954, and subsequently supervised the play's publication. In 1956 Goacher forewent an invite to Hollywood to become Pound's secretary, visiting him at St Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington DC, typing his poetry and campaigning for his release. In the same year Bridson visited Pound to make some recordings of the poet for the BBC Goacher gave this copy of Section: Rock Drill to Bridson at that time. Gallup A70a. Language: English
Seller: Bernard Quaritch Ltd ABA ILAB, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$992.17 + shipping
Description: Milano (Verona), All'insegna del pesce d'oro [Scheiwiller] (Stamperia Valdonega), [1955] MCMLV, Prima edizione. La copia di Arrigo Lora Torino (ex libris a timbro), noto esponente della poesia visiva; in ottime condizioni. «In 1955, an annus mirabilis in Modernist publishing history, cat Ezra turned to fish Vanni to launch nothing less than a new volume of cantos, that «Section: Rock-Drill» he had been working at since 1946, but which only in 1954 was written out in one burst of sustained inspiration that was not to be repeated in Pounds lifetime. Scheiwiller received the manuscript at Christmas 1954, and set about seeing it into print. Why Pound should have decided to thumb his nose at Laughlin and Faber and make a deal with a twenty-year-old Milanese is a mystery, but typical of Pounds mischievousness and opportunism. Scheiwiller was a novice, but he surely could guarantee a higher quality of printing than Sodom on Thames and Hudson nothing less than beautiful Verona on Adige where the noble printer Giovanni Mardesteig set up «Rock-Drill» and printed it in an edition of 506 copies in September 1955. This book was the revelation of a new Pound. In England Donald Davie and even Philip Larkin marveled at all those Chinese characters marching down the page. [ ] Vanni was his accomplice and the production of «Rock-Drill» a memorable event, which Vanni was to recall as the principal windfall of his publishing career. Of course, «Rock-Drill» was then reprinted by Pounds traditional publishers, but using Scheiwillers plates and type, which are still there in the current New Directions «Cantos»» (Bacigalupo, pp. 247-8). Gallup, Ezra Pound: a Bibliography, A70a; Bacigalupo, Vanni Scheiwiller Italian Publisher of Ezra Pound (Paideuma 29,3, winter 2000: 245-252), p. 251 in 16°, cartonato illustrato (ritratto dell'autore di H. Gaudier-Brzeska), pp. [8] 107 [5] ill. da numerosi ideogrammi, sguardie. Prima edizione. La copia di Arrigo Lora Torino (ex libris a timbro), noto esponente della poesia visiva; in ottime condizioni. cartonato illustrato (ritratto dell'autore di H. Gaudier-Brzeska),
Seller: Libreria Antiquaria Pontremoli SRL, Milano, MI, Italy
POUND, Ezra. SECTION: ROCK-DRILL 85-95 de los cantares. All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro, Milano, 1955.
Price: US$3125.00 + shipping
Description: Decorated gray boards with sepia head of Pound by Gaudier-Brzeska on the front cover. Copy #41 of 503 printed at the Stamperia Valdonega di Verona. INSCRIBED and SIGNED on the front endpaper by the poet: "Teresa's copy/Ezra Pound." Laid in are three pieces of ephemera: a postcard advertisement for this book with a portrait of Pound signed by V. Scheiwiller, a folded price list with the same portrait from Scheiwiller, and a color postcard of Rapallo, addressed in an unknown hand to Teresa Magee in Rome in 1967, and SIGNED "Love and best wishes/Fifi/John/Olga/Ezra Pound." The postcard is SIGNED by Pound, but the other names appear to be in their own hands. Teresa Magee translated some Italian modern writers into English. Bookplate on front pastedown of Maire Christina Magee Lawson. Some wear to the boards, Very Good
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.