Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Crane, Hart; Walker Evans [Photography]. The Bridge. Horace Liveright, New York, 1930.
Price: US$800.00 + shipping
Description: First American edition, revised from the Paris edition published by Black Sun Press. [iv], 82 pp. Bound in publisher's original dark blue cloth ruled in blind, with titles in gilt on spine and upper board. Near Fine with hardly any wear, pages slightly toned with age, lacking jacket. An attractive copy. An epic modernist poem inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge, the New York City landmark that's changed hands in the minds of people so many times it deserves to adorn today's cryptocurrency, if such a thing were possible. The photographic frontispiece is by the poet's buddy, Walker Evans.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart. The Bridge. New York Horace Liveright, 1930.
Price: US$2000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First American edition, after the limited, Black Sun edition. Half-title; frontispiece with black & white Walker Evans photo of Brooklyn Bridge; title-page in red & black, 1930 copyright date on the reverse; page with a quotation from the Book of Job; Contents. 6 ¼ in. x 8 7/8 in., 82 pp. Printed on laid paper with watermark design and word: Utopian. Dark blue cloth with gilt titling on the spine and front cover. Dark blue dust-jacket with black titling, Walker Evans photo on the front panel, reviews of White Buildings on the back panel. Two dollars fifty price present. The lower spine of the book shows some scattered mottling or spotting, with a few similar spots to the back cover. The dust-jacket which shows fading & edge wear, and some of the lower dust-jacket spine lacking, was laminated by a former owner for preservation. A few pages are unopened. Titles: Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge; Ave Maria; Powhatans Daughter: The Harbor Dawn, Van Winkle, The River, The Dance, Indiana; Cutty Sark; Cape Hatteras; Three Songs: Southern Cross, National Winter Garden, Virginia; Quaker Hill; The Tunnel; Atlantis. Schwartz & Schweik A 3.1 p. 20.
Seller: Peter Keisogloff Rare Books, Inc., Brecksville, OH, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart. The Bridge. A Poem. Horace Liveright, New York, 1930.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Description: Dark blue cloth,fine in lightly chipped, dust jacket, the frontispiece and jacket illustration are from a photograph of Brooklyn Bridge by Walker Evans. This second edition (first American and first trade edition contains many corrections and revisions. Schwartz and Schweik A 3.1. Second edition (after the deluxe Black Sun Press edition).
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart. The Bridge. A Poem. Horace Liveright, New York, 1930.
Price: US$3500.00 + shipping
Description: Dark blue cloth, fine in near- fine dust jacket, jacket spine very slightly faded. The frontispiece and jacket illustration are from a photograph of Brooklyn Bridge by Walker Evans. This second edition (folloing the Black Sun Press limited edition (contains many corrections and revisions. Schwartz and Schweik A 3.1.
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart.. The Bridge.. Horace Liveright, New York, 1930.
Price: US$3500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Preceded by the limited edition from Black Sun Press a few months before. This is the first American edition, first printing. A Fine, clean copy in dark blue cloth, in a Fine dark blue dustwrapper, not price-clipped, with some minor restoration along spinefolds, and points. Many pages uncut. 82pp. Crane's masterpiece. Two years later, he would jump to his death from deck of a steamship into the Gulf of Mexico. Q06247
Seller: Compass Rose Books, ABAA-ILAB, Kensington, CA, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart.. The Bridge. With Three Photographs by Walker Evans.. Black Sun Press, 1930.
Price: US$9500.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Limited Edition. #118/200 Numbered Copies printed on Holland Paper, bound in French fold cream wrappers printed in black and red, spine slightly toned, in clear glassine (browned and nicked at edges), in silver-sided slipcase. Slipcase is restored. Text and endpapers clean and unmarked. Unpaginated. A lyric epic and paean to America at the height of the industrial age, brimming with rhetorical flights and eccentric visionary imagery. Lovely copy of a scarce and fragile book. Q15820
Seller: Compass Rose Books, ABAA-ILAB, Kensington, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Description: Quarto, original white printed wrappers, copy number 104 out of 200 on Holland paper. Wrappers fine, just a bit of wear to the spine of the original glassine, original silver-paper slipcase worn, missing its ends and with a bit bent down and peeling. [Schwartz & Schweik A 2].
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Description: Quarto, original white printed wrappers, glassine cover, silver-gilt paper slipcase in pieces, light offsetting to the front end-papers, and with the usual slight discoloration to the covers, and a few small spots to the spine. Basically, a fine copy, fresh and clean. One of 200 numbered copies on Holland paper. The first book illustrated by Walker Evans, with three photogravures.
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Description: 4to, original white printed wrappers, original glassine, in publisher's silver-gilt paper covered slipcase. Expert archival restoration to slipcase, light offsetting to the front end papers, and with the usual discoloration to the covers where the book is pulled out of the slipcase, otherwise a very good copy of an increasingly rare book. Expert archival restoration to slipcase, light offsetting to the front end papers, and with the usual discoloration to the covers where the book is pulled out of the slipcase, otherwise a very good copy of an increasingly rare book First edition of Crane's masterpiece. One of 200 numbered copies printed on Holland Paper. Schwartz & Schweik A2. Minkoff A32. Connolly 100, 64. One of the seminal American poems of the Twentieth Century, about which Harold Bloom has noted: "what is imperishable in The Bridge is not its lyric mourning, but its astonishing transformation of the sublime ode into an American epic, uneven certainly but beyond The Waste Land in aspiration and accomplishment." - Introduction to The Complete Poems of Hart Crane (N. Y.: Liveright, 2000). In 1928, Crane and Evans met for the first time under Brooklyn Bridge, "Evans with his vest-pocket camera and Crane with his notebook. They recognized each other as kindred spirits and fell naturally into conversation. Crane was fascinated by photography. . . ." After first considering a reproduction of Joseph Stella's cubist painting of the Brooklyn Bridge to illustrate his poem, Crane decided that he "wanted to use three of Evans' photographs of the bridge as separate plates within the text." Evans's photographs were published for the first time in The Bridge, and since then have become identified not only with Crane's poem, but with the Brooklyn Bridge itself, in the artistic and literary imagination. - Belinda Rathbone, Walker Evans. A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), pp. 41-52.
Seller: James S. Jaffe Rare Books, LLC, ABAA, Deep River, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$12500.00 + shipping
Description: First edition Quarto, original white printed wrappers, small ownership "chop" on front endpaper, a fine copy in original silver paper slipcase. No. 97 of 200 numbered copies on Holland paper. [Schwartz & Schweik A 2].
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart.. THE BRIDGE, A Poem.. The Black Sun Press: Paris, 1930.
Price: US$14375.00 + shipping
Description: Three photographs by Walker Evans, 10.5 x 8.75, wrap in glassine cover, unpag, one corner with very gentle bump else nice fresh copy in splitting silver slipcase. FIRST ED, ONE OF 200 NUMBERED COPIES.
Seller: John K King Used & Rare Books, Detroit, MI, U.S.A.
Hart Crane; Walker Evans. The Bridge [Japanese Vellum, Signed]. The Black Sun Press, Paris, 1930.
Price: US$15000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: One of 50 copies on Japanese Vellum, signed by Hart Crane. Contents completely fine, a very fresh copy. Covers generally bright and clean (see photos), but the spine tips are dulled where the glassine is also worn. There is a professionally repaired thin paper-split down the spine, now manifesting as a crease (see photo). During the repair, thin paper reinforcement was added underneath, so that the book can now be laid open flat -- and actually enjoyed. The book is also now supported by a thick mylar wrap, which makes it easier to handle. A modernist highspot at a very attractive price.
Seller: Blue Sky Rare Books, Palm Springs, CA, U.S.A.
Hart Crane. The Bridge, illus. Walker Evans. Black Sun Press, 1930.
Price: US$19323.94 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Crane is a singular figure in American poetry in that he sought a Romantic voice in the era of high Modernism. The Bridge is easily his most significant work, his answer to Eliots The Waste Land or the Cantos of Ezra Pound, and one which finds hope and optimism in his century where Eliot saw only despair, which is sadly ironic given Eliots long life and Cranes suicide at 32. This is one of Black Sun Press typically beautiful productions, one of an edition of 284. Includes the original slipcase which is a bit damaged, and is otherwise an excellent copy of this scarce and much loved title, made particularly special by the inclusion of illustrative photographs by Cranes friend, the legendary photographer Walker Evans.
Seller: CASSIUS&Co., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$20000.00 + shipping
Description: Quarto, original white wrappers, original printed dust jacket, original glassine jacket, untrimmed. Housed in publisher's original silver foil-covered slipcase. Custom boxed. Copy number 121 of 200 copies on Holland paper (from a total edition of only 283 copies). This copy has Crane's bookplate, version "C" (K. Lohf, Proof, 3, 1972), on the front endpaper. Illustrated with three superb tissue-guarded photographs by Walker Evans. The second and last book published during Crane's brief and tragic life, The Bridge was written in violent reaction to the pessimism and disillusionment of post-war American and English poetry, specifically Eliot's Waste Land. Crane's goal was to write a visionary poem integrating American history since the Spanish conquest with present-day realities of business, the marvels of architecture and engineering, and the American spirit of democratic optimism, all held together by one dominant symbol -- the Brooklyn Bridge. His poetic sensibility, akin to the revolutionary aesthetic begun by Walt Whitman and developed by such poets as William Carlos Williams and later Robert Lowell, is at its best in such lyrics as "The Harbor Dawn" and "The River." "Crane finds in America a principle of unity and absolute faith and. in the Brooklyn Bridge, an image of man's anonymous creative power unifying past and present" (Hart, 192). . Connolly, The Modern Movement, 62. Hart Crane's engraved bookplate on inside of front wrapper. Only some darkening and wear to the fragile glassine along the spine; fragile paper spine starting to split, but sound. Some rubbing to edges of the silver-foil publisher's slipcase. Interior fine. Evidenced by the presence of his bookplate in its earliest state, this was Crane's own copy (or one of his copies) of his masterpiece, a cornerstone of modern American poetry, in extremely good condition. [Schwartz & Schweik A 2].
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$20000.00 + shipping
Description: No. 175 of 200 copies (from a total edition of only 283 copies) on Holland paper, printed in red and black. Printed for Harry and Caresse Crosby at the Black Sun Press. A most desirable association copy. The Crosbys visited Crane in New York in late 1929. A few days later, Harry committed suicide. Caresse returned to Paris and supervised the production of this book. This copy is from the library of Caresse Crosby, and bears the leather, joint bookplate of Harry and Caresse on the reverse of the front cover. The three Evans photographs are protected by tissue-guards. Original paper-wrapper covers, front and back. Small cracks to the paper on the spine near the top and a minuscule split at the lower front hinge. A very small chip to spine. Offset from bookplate on endpaper. Contained in the original grey cardboard slipcase covered in a gold-and-silver paper, with a cloth pull; the slipcase has been expertly restored. A fine, fresh copy. Provenance: From the library of Crane scholar Vivian Pemberton, purchased from InternationalBookfinders, 1987. Minkoff: Black Sun Bibliography A-32. pp. 30-31. [Schwartz and Schweik: A 2].
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$22500.00 + shipping
Description: From the first edition of 283 copies, this copy is one of only 25 review copies marked "hors commerce". Lightly soiled wrappers with minor wear and sun to the spine. Pages have the occasional faint spotting. Schwartz & Schweik A 2. The Black Sun Press issued a note with hors commerce copies (although not present here) stating "[We] regret that due to a defective impression and quality of paper these advance copies of 'The Bridge,' hors commerce, are considered typographically imperfect. A re-impression on velin Van Gelder of the numbered copies will appear for sale March 1st at the Bookshop of Harry F. Marks, New York." This would indicate that hors commerce copies along with those on Japanese vellum arguably constitute a first impression before the type was reset for the run on Van Gelder, and, indeed there are differences in the line spacing between the printings.
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$27500.00 + shipping
Description: Quarto, original white printed wrappers. Expert restoration to the paper on the spine, otherwise a bright, fresh copy with all tissue guards present; original glassine replaced; enclosed in a new slipcase. Copy number 30 of only 50 copies printed on Japan Vellum, signed by Crane. There were an additional 200 copies in the regular issue. One of the most important American poetic works of the twentieth century as well as a significant collaboration between writer and photographer. The Bridge, called "cubism in poetry" when it was initially reviewed in The New York Times, stands as one of the great epics of 20th-century poetry. Cyril Connolly writes that of the poems "some of them. are near perfect and the whole allegory a masterpiece of neo- romanticism" (The Modern Movement, p.62). Its publication was initiated when Crane met Harry and Caresse Crosby on his trip to Europe in 1929. After reading drafts of "The Bridge", they agreed to publish a limited edition under their Black Sun imprint. Crane took up residence in an old mill on the estate of the Conte de la Rochefoucauld which the Crosby's had made into their weekend retreat. Crane hoped to finish the poem that summer, but was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and briefly incarcerated in July. Crosby brought Crane's return ticket to the U.S. In December, he and his wife visited Crane in New York. A few days after their visit, Harry committed suicide. Despite her husband's death, Caresse Crosby returned to Paris to see The Bridge through the press. Numerous changes, mostly minor, were incorporated in the American edition, which appeared three months after the first. [Schwartz & Schweik A 2].
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.
Crane, Hart. The Bridge. Horace Liveright, New York, 1930.
Price: US$30000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First American edition, preceded by the Paris edition published by Black Sun Press. Signed by Hart Crane on the front free endpaper. Bound in publisher's original dark blue cloth ruled in blind, with titles in gilt on spine and upper board. Near Fine with sunning to cloth at spine and edges, a few light scratches to the boards, light loss to corners and spine ends heaviest at the crown. Pages toned and with a few short edge tears to pages. A work that has critics divided to this day, with some claiming it to be Crane's best work and a masterpiece of American Modernism.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$30000.00 + shipping
Description: One of 50 copies on Japanese Vellum, signed by Crane. Quarto, original white printed wrappers, with original glassine cover and gilt paper covered slipcase (slipcase slightly rubbed, 1-inch piece missing from bottom edge). A beautiful copy of one of the rarest and most important books of twentieth century poetry, and the first book publication of Evans's work, it was illustrated with three gravures printed actual size from his 1-3/8 inch by 2- 1/2 inch photos.
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.