Ta Hio (1927)
A28
Editions
a. First edition
[Within ornamental-rule border:] TA HIO | The Great Learning | NEWLY RENDERED INTO | THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE | By | Ezra Pound | [device] | 1928 | University of WASHINGTON Boox Store| Seattle
1 blank leaf, 4 leaves, [7]-35 pp., 1 leaf, 1 blank leaf. 18.6 x 12.9 cm. Black paper wrappers printed in gold on page, folded over stiff tan blanks; edges untrimmed. Glassine envelope printed in black on front: FIRST EDITION, with flap sealed with sticker bearing the publisher’s device.
Published 10 April 1928 at 65¢ as “University of Washington Chap-books, Edited by Glenn Hughes, 14”; 575 copies printed. On verso of title-leaf: ... Printed in the United States of America
“The Confucian Classics are customarily divided into the Five Ching and the Four Shu. The first of the Four Shu (or Books) is the Ta Hio, a work of which the first chapter is ascribed to Confucius, and the remainder to one of his disciples, Thseng-tseu (Tsang Tzu).” (“Note,” p. [6]) 42 Conzents: Ta Hio, the Great Learning—The Explanation of Thseng-tseu (Or, as we should say, the “Annotations”)
b. b. First English edition ([1936])
Ta Hio | THE GREAT LEARNING | Newly rendered into the | American
Language | By | EZRA POUND | [ideogram] | LONDON | Stanley Nott |
Fitzroy Square
32 pp. 20.2 x 13.6 cm. Yellow paper boards printed in
black on front cover; end-papers. Yellow dust-jacket printed in black.
Published May 1936 at 2s. as “Ideogramic Series, Edited by Ezra Pound,
II”; 3000 sets of sheets printed (of which 196 were used for the
American issue in 1938 and 331 were bombed during the Second World War).
On verso of title-leaf: Printed in Great Britain at The Kynoch Press for Stanley Nott Ltd., 69 Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square, London, W1 1936
Of this edition 196 sets of sheets were imported by New Directions and issued in New York in November 1938, with cancel title-leaf and excised half-title (series) leaf, as No. 4 in the “New Directions Pamphlet Series.” 648 copies of the Nott 1936 edition were taken over in October 1937 by Faber and Faber; of these, 317 were sold and 331 destroyed by bombing (as noted above). For the “Ideogramic Series, Edited by Ezra Pound,” see note to No. 1 of the series, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry (1936)—B36a.
Notes: A new edition (1000 copies), issued by New Directions in New York in August 1939, although announced to contain new notes and revisions by Ezra Pound, is merely a reprint. For Ezra Pound’s later English version of this text see “The Great Digest” in Confucius. The Unwobbling Pivot & The Great Digest (1947)—As8—and Confucius. The Great Digest & Unwobbling Pivot ([1951])—B53. Ezra Pound’s Italian version is Confucto. Ta S’eu. Dai Gaku. Studio integrale (1942)—B46—and Testamento di Confucio (1944)—A54.
Content is now editable.