Guide to Kulchur (1938)
A45
Editions
a. First edition
EZRA POUND | GUIDE | TO | KULCHUR | [row of 4 heavy dots | FABER & FABER LIMITED | 24 RUSSELL SQUARE | LONDON
1 blank leaf, 3 leaves, 5-359 pp. front. 20.9 x 14.2 cm. Green cloth boards lettered in gold on spine; end-papers. Cream dust-jacket printed in grey, red, and green (later copies with yellow paper sticker pasted on front flap altering price to 12s, 6d.).
Published 21 July 1938 at tos. 6d. (later raised to 12s. 6d.); 1487 sets of sheets printed (of which 520 were used for the American issue and 230 were bombed during the Second World War). On verso of title-leaf; First published in June [sic] Memxxxviii ... Printed in Great Britain by R. MACLEHOSE and Company Limited The University Press Glasgow ...
Dedication on page [3]: To Louis Zukofsky and Basil Bunting strugglers in the desert
“For valued help in proof correcting and in making this index, my sincere thanks to John Drummond.—E. P. 6 April anno XVI.” (Note at foot of page 359)
Copies of the book were already bound when the publishers decided that certain passages were libellous and must be deleted. Ezra Pound was allowed to have five unexpurgated copies for his personal use (one of them he presented to John Drummond on 10 June 1938), and the publishers retained one copy for their files. Publication of the book was delayed from June until July while at least 15 leaves were reprinted, the original leaves excised from copies already bound, and the new leaves pasted on to the resulting stubs. For the unbound sheets the offending leaves with their conjugates were reprinted. Three copies have been located of this third state of the first edition; all other copies examined (except the six unexpurgated ones) have the following cancel leaves: pages 61 93-4, 119-20, 131-2, 157-8, 163-6, 189-90, 195-6, 241-4, 285-6, 289-90, 343-4, 351-[360].
Alterations were made as follows: page 93: “unspeakable” omitted in line 13; “Gbr” substituted for “Gib” in line 15; page 119: footnote to lines 1 and 2 omitted; page 131:.“no cheating or Substitution had occurred.” replaced by “|” in line 3; “This shark (Peck or Peek | think his name was)” replaced by “This dogfish was probably unconscious” in line 8; “their mendacity. | This kind of thing is hired.” replaced by period in line 18; page 157: “zur” replaced by “durch” in line 6 up; page 158: “Among the signal shirkers | think we may list Sr Madériaga.” omitted after “‘save Spain’.” in line 16, page 163: “Runciman” replaced by “........ in line 22; page 164: “The Times” replaced by “numerous” in last line; page 165: “N.M. Butler” replaced by “some University Presidents” in line 2; page 190: “of punks, pimps and cheap dudes” omitted after “gang” in line 21; page 195: “privately: Cosmo is probably the wickedest man who ever sat in the seat of St. Augustine.” replaced by “privately in such a manner that I can’t print what he says without danger of libel.” in lines 3 and 4; page 196: “Times, | Telegraph or any other paper” deleted and “any paper” left in lines 13-14; page 241: last line deleted, page 242: initials changed and names omitted in line 1; page 244: last 4 lines originally read: “One of the messiest characters of British public life (or filth) in our time passed many laws so ambiguous in wording that lawyers knew not how to interpret them. The same blot on humanity put through a law which led”; page 286: 8-line passage concerning Thomas Hardy’s sisters omitted after line 12; page 290: lines 7-10 originally read: “Only Kipling, who had a gross and most British mind regarding women, put up some sort of episcopal frontage, because he was despicably cowardly when it came to matters of thought, outside his given limits,”; page 344: “Prof.” omitted after “like” in line 20; pages 351-Go: alterations in Index made necessary by cancels in text, eg. “Murray, Gbt” for “Murray, Gib” on page 356.
Notes: Chapter 1, pp. 15-21, is a “Digest of the Analects, that is, of the Philosophic Conversations” of Confucius. Chapter 34, “On Arriving and Not Arriving,’ pp. 209-10, includes “The Lioness Warns Her Cubs,” Pound’s verse translation of the German text of a song of the Haussa tribe of the Sudan, collected by R. Prietze. Chapter 35, “Praise Song of the Buck-Hare,” pp. 21113, is Pound’s verse translation of a folk-song of Teleuten, Siberia, collected by Wilhelm Radloff. Chapter 36, “Time-Lag,” pp. 214-16, includes Pound’s (partial) literal and free translations, based on Pére Lacharme’s Latin text, of the ode printed in The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius (195 4)—A69—p. 51 as Poem No. 108, “Encroachment.”
A note by the publisher on the dust-jacket of the new edition published by New Directions in 1952 (see below) states that the original title for this book was “Kutch,” or Ex? Guide to Kulchur and that it was so specified in the contract for the first edition. 62
b. American issue (1938)
EZRA POUND | CULTURE | NEW DIRECTIONS [James Laughlin] | NORFORK—CONNETICUT | 1938
1 blank leaf, 3 leaves, 5-359 pp. front. 20.6 x 14.2 cm. Blue cloth boards lettered in gold on spine; end-papers. White dust-jacket printed in grey and red.
Published 11 November 1938 at $2.50; 519 copies issued. These are the English sheets with the first gathering (including half-title and title-page) and-all cancels with their conjugates reprinted as integral parts of the book. On verso of utle-leaf: ... Printed in England Published in London under the title “Guide to Kulchur”
Note: After these 519 copies had been sold, New Directions imported and sold copies of the English edition at $3.00.
c. New edition ([1952])
EZRA POUND | GUIDE | TO | KULCHUR | [row of 4 heavy dots] | A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK [Norfolk, Conn., James Laughlin]
1 blank leaf, 379 pp., 1 blank leaf, incl. front., facsims. (music). 21.1 x 14.2 cm. Black cloth boards lettered in silver down the spine: KULCHUR by EZRA POUND; end-papers. White dust-jacket printed in blue and black.
Published 29 August 1952 at $4.00; 3500 copies printed. On verso of title-leaf: . . . Printed in the United States of America New Directions Books are published by James Laughlin at Norfolk, Connecticut New York Office 333 Sixth Avenue
Contents: [photographic reprint of the text of the first edition through page 349, with: ADDENDA: 1952: Aristotle’s “Magna moralia”—As Sextant—Introductory Text Book [with reproduction of title-page|—[Ideograms representing title| Or One Word Will Ruin It All—Distinguish—Chronology for School Use—Diseases—“Heaulmiére” from the Opera Villon [facsimile of manuscript in the hand of Olga Rudge|—Villon and Comment—Condensare [Although they precede the index, these additions are not included in it (it is a photographic reprint, with page numbers altered, of the index of the first edition) Index
Notes: The long “blurb” printed on the back of the dust-jacket for this book was written anonymously by Pound (see Noel Stock, The Life of Ezra Pound ([1970]), p432, where most of it is quoted).
Reissued paperbound in 1968 by New Directions as their Paperbook 257 at $2.35.
d. New edition, English issue ([1952])
EZRA POUND | GUIDE | TO | KULCHUR | [row of 4 heavy dots] | PETER OWEN LIMITED * LONDON
1 blank leaf, 379 pp., 1 blank leaf, incl. front., facsims. (music). 21.2 x 14.2 cm. Blue cloth boards stamped in yellow on spine; end-papers. Yellow dustjacket printed in black and blue.
Published 15 October 1952 at 255.3 500 sets of sheets printed by New Directions for Peter Owen, bound and jacketed in England. On verso of title-leaf: ... Printed in the U.S.A. MCMLII.
Content is now editable.