[Rarebooks] FS: James Wright's first book Inscribed to his wife with an original poem

[Charles Agvent]

 From our list of 72 items in our new Fall catalogue now posted on our 
web site: http://www.erols.com/agvent.  Also in the catalogue are fine 
Signed Presidential and Literary items, Early Printed Books, and our 
usual selection of the unusual.

  WRIGHT, James.   THE GREEN WALL.    New Haven:  Yale University Press
1957.  First Edition.  Poet's very scarce first book, part of the Yale
Series  of  Younger Poets, with an introduction by W. H.  Auden.  This
copy  belonged  to Wright's wife, Liberty, with her SIGNATURE  at  the
top  of the front free endpaper and below that a SIGNED INSCRIPTION by
the  poet quoting two lines from a poem in the book, "Eleutheria," and
adding   a  bittersweet,  revealing   commentary:  "for  Lib,/and  the
ground's  deliberate/riches,  the fallen pears, the/bewildered  apples
blown  to/mounds  of  shade, and mainly/for the  poison  ivy,  which I
kept/out   of  the  poem,  not   because/it  didn't  scan  or   rhyme,
but/because  it  was  the sweet/and secret root  from  which/the  poem
came./Love and grief,/Jim."  Liberty Kardules was Wright's high school
sweetheart and the mother of his sons Franz and Marshall.  Wright left
Liberty  two years after publication of this book and divorced her  in
1962.  Franz Wright is now an accomplished poet. He and his father are
the  only  parent/child pair to have won a Pulitzer Prize in the  same
category.  Dustwrapper  worn but complete but for small chips  at  the
spine tips and corners.  Near Fine in a Good dustwrapper.  Exceptional
Association Copy.                                             $7500.00

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CHARLES AGVENT
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Mertztown, PA  19539-8750
610-682-4750
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