The Chinese Written Character As A Medium For Poetry (1936)
B36
Editions
a. First separate edition
The Chinese Written Character | as a Medium for Poetry | By | ERNEST FENOLLOSA | [ornament] | AN ARS POETICA | [ornament| | With a Foreword and Notes | by | EZRA POUND | [ideogram|| LONDON | STANLEY NOTT | FITZROY SQUARE
52 pp.; 21.7 x 17.5 cm. Black cloth boards, with imitation vellum back stamped in red with mle on each side and lettered in red down the spine; end-papers; top edges stained black. Cream dust-jacket printed in red and black. Published 3 March 1936 at 5s. as “Ideogramic Series, Edited by Ezra Pound, 1”; 2000 sets of sheets printed (of which 200 were bombed during the Second World War). The unsold stock was transferred 9 September 1937 to Faber and Faber, who sold 173 copies. On verso of title-leaf: Printed in Great Britain by The Kynoch Press 1936 Reprinted from Instigations (1920)—A18—with a few minor changes and the addition of a “Foreword,” pp. 5-6, a brief “Terminal Note,” p. 37, and an appendix “With Some Notes [on Chinese Written Characters] by a Very Ignorant Man,” pp. [3952. Notes: Of the “Ideogramic Series, Edited by Ezra Pound,” only this first number and a second, Za io, the Great Learning (1936)—A28b—were published. The third number was to have been William Carlos Williams’s In the American Grain, but Stanley Nott ceased his publishing activities before the book could be printed. Pound’s editing of the later numbers in the series was to have been confined to his selecting and securing the manuscripts for inclusion. This book was reprinted (omitting the fly-title to the appendix), reduced, by offset and issued 14 July 1951, in a single volume with offset of the Indian (1949) edition of Pound’s Confucius. The Unwobbling Pivot & The Great Digest, at $1.00, as Ernest Fenollosa. The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. With Offset of the Calcutta Edition of Pivot ((Washington, D. C.] Square $ Series [1951]), where it appears as pp. [50}-96 (pp. [49}96 in later impressions). Some copies have stamp in blue on title-page and above the imprint on page [iv] of the wrapper: John Kasper, Publisher | Box 552, G.P.O. N.Y.1, N.Y. An advertisement leaf—at first a broadside printed on green paper, measuring 15§.3 X 7:9 cm., and later a leaf of two pages, measuring 14 X 7-3 cm., headed The Unwobbling Pivot Pounds masterly translation of Confucius’ basic work and quoting Pound’s “Note” to “The Great Digest” (from page 29), was distributed at the time of publication and was loosely laid into some copies. Page [2] of the later advertisement leaf is headed Pounds Introductory Text-book and reprints E2r, with a typed statement added along the lefthand margin: “Lincoln was shot for understanding what Jeff wrote to Crawford in 1816”.
b. American issue
The Chinese Written Character | as a Medium for Poetry | by | ERNEST FENOLLOSA | [ommament] | AN ARS POETICA | [omament] | With a Foreword and Notes | By | EZRA pounp | [ideogram] | ARROW EDITIONS | NEW YORK
52pp.; 22 x 17 cm. Green paper boards stamped in blind with white paper label printed in black inlaid on front cover, and white paper label printed in black on spine; end-papers. Yellow dust-jacket printed in green. Published November 1936 at $1.50 (series as for English edition); number of copies unknown. These are the English sheets with a reprinted title-leaf (with title-page as above) and its conjugate. On verso of title-leaf: ... Printed in Great Britain by The Kynoch Press 1936 Note: This book was published paperbound in San Francisco in 1964 by City Lights Books at $1.25. Copies of the edition were distributed overseas by the Scorpion Press, Lowestoft.
Content is now editable.