A Draft of XXX Cantos (1930)
A31
Editions
a. First edition, unsigned copies
A DRAFT OF | XXX CANTOS | By | EZRA POUND | HOURS PRESS | 15 rue Guénégaud | Paris 1930
1 blank leaf, 2 leaves, 7-141, pp., 1 leaf, 2 blank leaves. 21.2 x 14.8 cm. Coarse natural linen boards lettered in red on front cover and up the spine; first and last blank leaves pasted down as end-papers; edges untrimmed.
Published August 1930 at 40s. Colophon (verso of first leaf): Justification 2 Copies 45 real vellum marked A.—B. not for sale 10 Copies on Texas Mountain Paper signed and numbered I-X 200 copies on Canson-Mongolfier Soleil velin M. R. V. Paper 1-200 : Imprimé pour The Hours Press par Maitre Imprimeur Frangois Bernouard 1930 Initiales par D[orothy]. S[hakespear Pound].
b. Signed copies
1 blank leaf, 2 leaves, 7-141, pp., 2 leaves, 1 blank leaf. 21.3 x 15 cm. Red-orange leather boards lettered in gold on front cover and up the spine; first and last blank leaves pasted down as end-papers; edges untrimmed.
Published August 1930, simultaneously with the unsigned copies, at 5 guineas. Colophon on verso of first leaf and imprint on page [143] as in unsigned copies. Colophon (page [145]): This edition consists of 10 copies signed by the author. This is no [number written in, signed: Ezra Pound] (The two copies on real vellum, measuring 20 x 15 cm., are bound like the ten copies on Texas Mountain paper.)
Notes: In all examined copies, unsigned and signed, Canto VI is misnumbered “TV” on page 23. The Hours Press was owned and operated by Nancy Cunard, who purchased from William Bird the printing press used for books published by his Three Mountains Press.
c. c. First American edition ([1933])
A DRAFT OF | XXX | CANTOS | BY EZRA POUND | [device] | FARRAR & RINEHART | INCORPORATED | NEW YORK
1 blank leaf, 3 leaves, 3-149 pp., 2 blank leaves. 22.7 x 15.8 cm. Black cloth boards lettered in silver down the spine; end-papers. Yellow dust-jacket printed in brown and black. Published 15 March 1933 at $2.50; 1000 copies printed. On verso of title-leaf: [Publisher’s monogram] Printed in the United States of America by J.J. Little and Ives Co., New York Designed by Robert S. Josephy ... With three exceptions (copies owned by University of Virginia, Yale, and DG), all examined copies have pages 61-62 printed on a cancel leaf with line 11 up on page 62 reading: “black beetles, burrowing into the sh-t,’. As originally printed, the offending word has been spelled out. (The misprints in the list of books “by Ezra Pound” on the verso of the half-title leaf, “proven” for “PROVENGA,” and “FONTANELLE” for “FONTENELLE,” are uncorrected throughout both Farrar and Rinehart impressions.)
Notes: An unbound, stapled pamphlet, The Cantos of Ezra Pound: Some Testimonies by Emest Hemingway, Ford Madox Ford, T. S. Eliot, Hugh Walpole, Archibald MACLEISH, James Joyce, and Others (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. [1933]), 22 [2] pp., measuring 19.6 x 13 cm., was issued in connexion with the publication of the book. Farrar and Rinehart published a second impression, with the cancel leaf (pp. 61-62) and its conjugate (pp. 71-72) reprinted as an integral part of the book. These copies omit the publisher’s monogram on the verso of the title-leaf, and the dust-jacket bears a notation at the top of the inside front flap: “Second Printing.” 164 copies of this second impression were taken over by New Directions in 1940 and issued with a cancel title-leaf (with New Directions imprint on title-page); the binding and dust-jacket of the Farrar and Rinehart second impression were retained without alteration.
d. d. First English edition ([1933])
A DRAFT OF | XXX CANTOS | By | EZRA POUND | LONDON | FABER & FABER LIMITED | 24 RUSSELL SQUARE
1 blank leaf, 153, pp., 2 blank leaves. 21.1 x 15 cm. Black cloth boards stamped in gold down the spine; end-papers; top edges stained yellow; other edges untrimmed. Orange-red dust-jacket printed in blue.
Published 14 September 1933 at 7s. 6d; 1500 copies printed. On verso of title-leaf: First published in September mcmxxxiii. Printed in Great Britain by R. MACLEHOSE and Company Limited The University Press Glasgow. ... “The present edition ... contains Mr. Pound’s latest corrections ... ” (Dustjacket) The misprints on page [2], “FONTANELLE” for “FONTENELLE,” and on the front flap of the dust-jacket, “Westcott” for “Wescott,” remain uncorrected throughout the first impression.
Notes: Pound’s most recent corrections are incorporated in the English text printed opposite the Italian translation in / Cantos ... Volume primo: I primi trenta Cantos ([1961])—D81. In the Italian translation, by Mary de Rachewiltz, partly in collaboration with the author, names of persons referred to have been substituted for fictitious names in Canto XVI. This text is used for a so-called “limited” edition of this title in combination with Personae, issued in 1980 for subscribers to a series, “The Greatest Books of the Twentieth Century,” by the Franklin Library, Franklin Center, Pa. The title-page reads: Ezra Pound Personae [and| A Draft of XXX Cantos. A Limited Edition. It collates: 2 blank leaves, 9 leaves, 351 pp., 1 blank leaf, incl. front. (port.) It measures 23:5 X 16-5 cm. and is bound in full red leather boards stamped in gold on both covers and on spine, with red-silk end-papers, all edges gilt, and with red-silk ribbon marker.
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