Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
John Ashbery, Joe Brainard (Illustr.). The Vermont Notebook. Black Sparrow Press, 1975.
Price: US$120.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Signed by author, John Ashbery, on titlepage. Cover is lightly rubbed with light smudges, edges are worn and corners are lightly creased, but text and images are clear and bright. Binding is tight. Other than author's signature, inside is clean and unmarked.
Seller: Moe's Books, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Description: First Printing, wrappered issue. Octavo (22.75cm); original pictorial card wrappers; [6],7-101,[7]pp; illus. Inscribed on the title page to Ashbery's editor, Elizabeth Sifton: "For Elizabeth / fondly / John Ashbery." Subtle toning to wrapper extremities, mild surface wear and a few scuffs to wrappers, with a faint, tiny stain to lower edge of textblock; fresh internally; Very Good+. A nice association copy of Ashbery's 1975 experimental book-length poem, often overlooked in favor of his critically-acclaimed Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror published the same year. Sifton (1939-2019) was Ashbery's long-time editor, who also co-published Selected Poems and April Galleons with Viking Press, and Three Poems with Penguin Books. A difficult title to find for years, until it was published by Granary Books in 2001, and included in the Library of America's volume of Ashbery's work. Kermani A21a; Morrow & Cooney 207a.
Seller: Captain Ahab's Rare Books, ABAA, Stephenson, VA, U.S.A.
Price: US$2261.60 + shipping
Description: First edition, signed limited issue, number 23 of 250 hardcover copies signed and numbered by Ashbery and Brainard, who in this work exemplify "the possible interplay between verbal and visual art. Brainard finds perfect complementary images to reveal further delicate facts and observations throughout" (Diggory). Joe Brainard's "drawing style was virtuosic, equal to all moods and genres, from the important 'suites' of high-contrast black ink drawings, like those in his collaboration with John Ashbery, The Vermont Notebook" (Kernan, p. 54). There were also issued an additional 26 signed and lettered copies with an original ink drawing by the artist. The trade edition was published in wrappers. Terence Diggory, Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets, 2015; Nathan Kernan, "Joe Brainard: The Madonna of the Future", Joe Brainard's Art, 2019. Octavo. Original green quarter cloth, white paper boards, paper spine label, front cover lettered in brown and red with a black illustration by Joe Brainard, red endpapers. Title page printed in green and red. With 47 full-page monochrome illustrations by Joe Brainard, and a half-tone from a photograph of the authors. Binding square and firm, spine lightly sunned, foxing at head of front cover and edges, contents clean and crisp. A very good copy indeed.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
ASHBERY, John and Joe Brainard. The Vermont Notebook. Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1975.
Price: US$3000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition. Quarter decorated cloth and illustrated papercovered boards and fine original acetate dust jacket. This is copy letter T of 26 lettered copies Signed by both Ashbery and Brainard, and with an original Signed ink drawing by Brainard used as a frontispiece.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$3250.00 + shipping
Description: Deluxe Issue, one of 26 lettered copies specially bound and signed by the author and illustrator, this being copy 'M.' Octavo (23.75cm); pictorial paper-covered boards and patterned cloth backstrip, with title label mounted to spine; publisher's original acetate dustjacket; [6],7-101,[7]pp. With a full-page original ink illustration of flowers by Brainard tipped in following the copyright page (signed and dated "Brainard 74"). Fine in a lightly rubbed, Near Fine dustjacket, with shallow loss at the crown. Deluxe issue of Ashbery's 1975 experimental book-length poem, often overlooked in favor of his critically-acclaimed Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror published the same year. "In fact, The Vermont Notebook has often been elided entirely from the Ashbery canon: excluded from Ashbery's bibliography in some subsequent volumes, the poem failed to make an appearance in the poet's 1985 Selected Poems.An innovative hybrid of prose, verse, and line drawings provided by artist-poet Joe Brainard, The Vermont Notebook differs significantly from Ashbery's more classically Stevensian verse of the period. Formally, the poem is characterized by quasi-cinematic jump cuts, blatant appropriation of found material, and meaningful white space separating its mostly prose paragraphs. Beyond mere stylistic difference, this most essayistic of Ashbery's books reflects and refracts, with typically Ashberyian irony, a number of arguments about environmental and sexual politics regnant during the decade when it was written" (Schmidt, Christopher. "The Queer Nature of Waste in John Ashbery's The Vermont Notebook." Arizona Quarterly, Vol.68, No.3 (Autumn 2021), pp.71-72). Difficult to find for years, until it was published by Granary Books in 2001, and included in the Library of America's volume of Ashbery's work. Uncommon in the deluxe issue. Kermani A21.b; Morrow & Cooney 207c.
Seller: Captain Ahab's Rare Books, ABAA, Stephenson, VA, U.S.A.