Exhibit Items from the 1970s

39. FIVE POEMS
    [no place: no publisher, 1971]
    Designed by Robert Williams with drawings by Virgil Burnett.
    Limited to 200 numbered copies signed by the illustrator and the authors. This is copy 6.
    
    Portfolio of five broadsides with illustrated title leaf, 18" x 12 1/2".
    
    Cream leaves printed in black with author and title printed variously in blue (Merrill), red, yellow, purple and green, laid into a grey folded envelope with a cream label printed in grey and black. A separate printing of the label with the copyright and permission information added is laid in.
    
    This portfolio marks the first appearance of James Merrill's poem "Crocheted Curtain." The other contributors are John Hollander, Daryl Hine, Carolyn Kizer and Richard Howard.
    
    
    
40. THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & LETTERS AND THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS CEREMONIAL, NEW YORK, 1971
    
    Program and related pieces.
    
    James Merrill was elected to the National Institute of Arts & Letters as a member of the Department in Literature in 1971.
    
    
    
41. THE YELLOW PAGES: 59 POEMS
    St. Louis: [privately printed], 1971.
    First edition, first state.
    Limited to 26 copies.
    
    Photocopied typescript, 38 pp., stapled into yellow sheets with title on cover; a streak of yellow has been added by hand across the title on the title page. The second state of the cover consists of heavier and darker paper, unprinted.
    
    James Merrill privately produced this collection for friends while serving as Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University in November 1971. The collection is comprised of 59 poems left out of previous trade books. The title and the rationale are explained in a prefatory paragraph: "Yellowed, brittle with reproach, these of mine are felt, this rainy weekend, to have deserved more than the pauper's ditch of a bottom drawer or dispersal in the pages of twenty magazines." The original dates of creation, from 1946-1971, are indicated at the end of each poem, affording an unusual and meaningful way to read and enjoy poems that might otherwise have been overlooked.
    
    
    
42. FOR W. H. AUDEN, FEBRUARY 21, 1972
    Edited by Peter H. Salus and Paul B. Taylor.
    New York: Random House, [1972]
    Limited to 500 copies.
    
    Stiff white wrappers printed in cream and dark blue-green; title and editors and publisher's logo on front cover and spine; acetate dust wrapper.
    
    This collection of tributes from friends was produced on the occasion of Auden's 65th Birthday. James Merrill has contributed a new poem, "Table Talk."
    
    
    
43. AN ANTHOLOGY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRAZILIAN POETRY
    Edited, with Introduction, by Elizabeth Bishop and Emanuel Brasil
    Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, [1972]
    First Edition. Sponsored by The Academy of American Poets.
    
    Blue cloth over boards; title, editors and publisher printed in gold on spine; avocado end papers; white dust jacket printed in avocado and black.
    
    Accompanied by worksheet for the poem "Vigil", 1 page.
    
    This anthology includes James Merrill's translations of five poems by Cecilia Meireles. The Portuguese original is printed facing the English translation. Comparison of the worksheet for the poem, "Vigil", with the final version shows that additional changes have occurred by the time of publication.
    
    The James Merrill Papers hold a variety of his translations of the work of others, including poems by Apollinaire, Hans Lodeizen, Montale, Rilke and Vassili Vassilikos.
    
    
    
44. BRAVING THE ELEMENTS: POEMS
    New York: Atheneum, 1972.
    First edition.
    
    Natural linen cloth over boards; title and author printed in blind on front cover; title, author and publisher printed in gold on spine; mottled lavender endpapers; top edge red; mottled lavender dust jacket printed in purple and red.
    
    BRAVING THE ELEMENTS: POEMS
    [London]: Chatto & Windus, 1973.
    First English edition. Phoenix Living Poets Series
    
    Brick orange textured paper over boards; phoenix logo printed in gold on front cover; title, author and publisher printed in gold on spine; white endpapers; all edges white; white dust jacket printed in blue and yellow with an abstract design in yellow and various shades of blue on front cover.
    
    BRAVING THE ELEMENTS: POEMS
    New York: Atheneum, 1979. Fourth printing, March 1979
    
    Stiff white wrappers printed in bright blue and deep pink.
    
    James Merrill, for Braving the Elements, was awarded the Bollingen Prize by Yale "for his wit and delight in language, his exceptional craft." The book takes its title from a line in the poem "Dreams about Clothes". Several poems in the collection are centered on the poet's residence in the Southwest and some also return to persistent themes arising from his childhood, especially "Days of 1935".
    
    
    
45. TWO POEMS FROM THE CUPOLA AND THE SUMMER PEOPLE
    [London]: Chatto and Windus/The Hogarth Press, [1972]
    First edition, review copy. Publisher's slip laid in noting publication date of August 10, 1972. Phoenix Living Poets Series.
    
    Brick orange textured paper over boards; phoenix logo printed in gold on front cover; title, author and publisher's initials printed in gold on spine; white endpapers; all edges white; white dust jacket printed in pink and black (Identical to first edition).
    
    "The Summer People" was first collected in the American edition of The Fire Screen (1969) but was omitted from the English edition, published in 1970. "From the Cupola" appeared first in Poetry magazine in December 1965 and was collected in the American edition of Nights and Days (1966) but again omitted from the English edition, also published in 1966. These two long poems are published together here for the first and only time.
    
    
    
46. THE POET'S STORY, Edited by Howard Moss
    New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc./London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, [1973]
    First edition.
    
    Blue cloth over boards; editor, title and publisher in silver on spine; white dust jacket printed in black, grey and yellow.
    
    Accompanied by three autograph and typescript drafts of "The Driver", 45 pp.
    
    This collection of short stories by American poets who had not published short fiction outside of periodicals, includes James Merrill's "The Driver", first published in Partisan Review (Fall 1962).
    
    
    
47. YANNINA
    New York: The Phoenix Book Shop, 1973
    First edition, lettered issue.
    Limited to 26 lettered copies not for sale, signed by the author. This is copy U.
    
    Six oblong off-white sheets folded and sewn into stiff manila wrappers covered with dark blue paper decorated with gold fleur de lys, folded at the foredges; white label printed in black on front cover. Designed and printed at the Ferguson Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
    
    YANNINA
    New York: The Phoenix Book Shop, 1973
    First edition, numbered issue. Limited to 100 numbered copies signed by the author. This is copy 72.
    
    Same physical description as lettered issue.
    
    This important long poem, dedicated to Stephen Yenser, first appeared in The Saturday Review and was later collected in Divine Comedies. The two background notes to the text are printed here at the end of the poem.
    
    David Kalstone's interview with James Merrill, "The Poet, Private", published in the Saturday Review (December 2, 1972) provides many useful insights into the making of the poem.
    
    
    
48. FIVE INSCRIPTIONS
    Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Pomegranate Press, 1974.
    Illustrated by Karyl Klop.
    Limited to 100 numbered copies signed by the author. There were also 80 numbered copies apparently signed only by the artist. This is copy 20.
    
    Broadside, 19" x 12".
    Light tan leaf printed in black and blue.
    
    This broadside presents for the first time five brief poems, mostly composed in 1971. These are later collected in the 1984 volume Occasions & Inscriptions.
    
    
    
49. THE YELLOW PAGES: 59 POEMS
    Cambridge, Massachusetts: Temple Bar Bookshop, 1974.
    First edition, cloth issue, limited to 50 numbered and signed copies. This is an unnumbered publisher's copy, inscribed by James Merrill.
    
    Black cloth over boards, with title and author printed in gold on cover and title, author and publisher printed in gold on spine; yellow sheets and yellow endpapers. Issued without a dust jacket.
    
    THE YELLOW PAGES: 59 POEMS
    Cambridge, Massachusetts: Temple Bar Bookshop, 1974.
    First edition, paper issue, limited to 750 [sic] copies.
    
    Yellow wrappers, printed in brown, reproducing the bookstore section of the Boston telephone directory yellow pages.
    
    In 1974 Temple Bar Bookshop brought out substantially the same collection of poems as the privately printed 1971 edition of the same title. There are three states of the paper issue. The first lacks the limitation statement found in the cloth issue; the second bears a pasted-in notice of limitation on the last page of text; the third and final state has a printed notice laid into the front of the book citing the limitation. There is a discrepancy between the number of copies cited by the publisher. In the cloth issue, it is stated that 750 softbound copies have been produced; in the notices in the paper copies, the figure 800 is given.
    
    Washington University holds the correspondence with the publisher, Eugene O'Neil and his associates, and the various editorial and proof material that led to the complete book, including another photocopy of the 1971 private issue of the poems, revised and annotated by James Merrill to show the original place of publication. Two poems have been dropped and two others--one early, one late--have been substituted. Omitted are "Morning in the Grand Style" and "The Formal Lovers", which had appeared in The Black Swan (1946). In their places are "Europa" (1947) and "The Catch-All" (1972), written after the private publication. For consistency, a title (the first line) has been assigned to one untitled poem, "We Walk in Woods".
    
    
    
50. REFLECTIONS ON ESPIONAGE/THE QUESTION OF CUPCAKE
    By John Hollander.
    New York: Atheneum, 1976.
    First edition.
    
    Maroon cloth over boards; title and author printed in blind on front cover; author, title and publisher printed in gold on spine; dark grey endpapers; top edge dark blue; issued in dust jacket, lacking in this copy.
    
    John Hollander's long poem has as one of its characters, "Image", to whom many of the messages are addressed. "Image" was the code name for James Merrill, who has contributed the final four "Notes" on page 74 of the text. These notes are included in the collection, Occasions & Inscriptions (1984) under the heading, "Four Transmissions in Code, Image to Cupcake".
    
    
    
51. DIVINE COMEDIES: POEMS
    New York: Atheneum, 1976.
    First edition.
    
    Deep grey cloth over boards; author and title printed in blind on front cover; title, author and publisher printed in silver on spine; orange endpapers; top edge orange; white dust jacket printed in orange-red, black and silver.
    
    DIVINE COMEDIES: POEMS
    Oxford/London: Oxford University Press, 1977.
    First English edition. Printed in the USA.
    
    Stiff white wrappers printed in orange-red, black and silver.
    
    DIVINE COMEDIES: POEMS
    New York: Atheneum, 1977.
    Second printing, first paperback issue.
    
    Stiff white wrappers printed in orange-red, black and silver.
    
    Accompanied by worksheets for the poem "Lost in Translation", 60 pp.
    
    Divine Comedies was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1977. The book is a stunning accomplishment in every respect and may be viewed as a transitional collection to the monumental trilogy yet to come. The second half of the volume is taken up with "The Book of Ephraim", the first book of the forthcoming epic; the first half is comprised of nine poems, most quite long, including the wonderful puzzle-piece, "Lost in Translation", dedicated to Richard Howard.
    
    
    
52. METAMORPHOSIS OF 741
    Pawlet, Vermont: The Banyan Press, 1977.
    Limited to 440 copies. This is copy 169. Series: Pawlet 4.
    
    Six white sheets and two leaves sewn into stiff white wrappers, with title printed in black on upper front cover. Blue and black illustration on title-leaf. Issued in a gummed manila envelope with series and title printed in blue. Printed by Claude Fredericks and David Beeken.
    
    At the time of this printing, "Metamorphosis of 741" was described as a section from a still untitled larger poem. The text is in fact the sections 3.3-3.5, Book 3 of Mirabell: Books of Number, although the section has been revised, in a few lines substantially, by the time of its final publication.
    
    Banyan Press books are impeccable and austere, exemplifying the printer Claude Fredericks' stated views of printing: "What makes good printing is a simplicity in design, consistency in execution, and a relentless solicitude for each and every detail."
    
    
    
53. A SEANCE WITH W.H. AUDEN FROM A WORK IN PROGRESS
    [Chicago]: Lovell & Whyte, 1978.
    Illustrated by Marion Brody.
    Limited to 75 numbered copies signed by the author. This is copy 71.
    
    Broadside, 35" x 23".
    Off-white leaf printed in black, red and yellow.
    
    In greatly reduced size, an uncolored version of this broadside was issued by the publisher as a pre-publication advertising mailing piece. The text is taken from the first section of Book 9 of Mirabell: Books of Number.
    
    
    
54. from MIRABELL
    [Charlottesville, Virginia]: University of Virginia, 1978.
    Limited to 100 numbered copies, of which 1-52 have varying typographical errors. This is copy 92. A few early copies were signed by the author.
    
    Broadside, 16 5/8" x 8 1/2".
    Light tan leaf printed in black. The colophon calls for Ragston paper but other stock was used.
    
    The text is the whole of the ninth section of Book 2 of Mirabell: Books of Number, without revision.
    
    
    
55. MIRABELL: BOOKS OF NUMBER
    New York: Atheneum, 1978.
    First edition. This is Elizabeth Bishop's copy dated November 28th, 1978, with her annotations.
    
    Maroon cloth over boards; author and title printed in blind on front cover; title, author and publisher printed in gold on spine; medium blue endpapers; top edge gold. White dust jacket printed in silver, black and red, featuring a drawing of a peacock.
    
    MIRABELL: BOOKS OF NUMBER
    Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
    First English edition. Printed in the USA.
    
    Stiff white wrappers printed in blue-green, pale blue and red, featuring the same peacock, but facing right.
    
    Mirabell continues the magnificent trilogy begun with "The Book of Ephraim", published two years earlier in Divine Comedies. This part of the epic focuses on the relationship between science and culture, with powerful contemplation of nuclear weaponry in particular. In an interview with David Kalstone, Merrill commented: "I think science is a visionary landscape in the twentieth century and was even in the nineteenth ... we certainly are starved for the scientific myths. These are constantly bursting out in front of us in fascinating forms, and I suppose the point would be to show or to somehow open the possibility that the classical myths and the scientific myths are really one and the same."
    
    Mirabell: Books of Number was recognized with the National Book Award in Poetry in 1979.
    
    
    
56. MIMI BAZILIKOI [cover title]
    [Athens, Greece: Galery Zoimpoilake, 1979]
    
    Stiff white wrappers printed in black with a color reproduction of one of the paintings on the front cover.
    
    This exhibit catalog of James Merrill's good friend Mimi Vassilikos' paintings includes an untitled poem. The first line begins: "My dear, you wrote describing that white dress." The catalog is in Greek and James Merrill's poem is in English.
    
    
    

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