Confucius To Cummings (1964)
B78
Editions
a. First edition, hardbound copies
Confucius to Cummings | An Anthology of Poetry | Edited by Ezra Pound & Marcella Spann | A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK [New York, James Laughlin]
1 blank leaf, xxii, 353 pp., 3 blank leaves. 20.8 x 14.4 cm. Yellow cloth boards with black cloth back stamped in gold; end-papers. White dust-jacket printed in black, yellow, and grey.
Published 12 November 1964 at $6.75; 2300 copies printed. On verso of ttle-leaf: ... Manufactured in the United States of America. New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin by New Directions Publishing Corporation, 333 Sixth Avenue, New York, 14....
“This anthology is Ezra Pound’s own choice of the poetry of various ages and cultures—ranging from his translations of the Confucian Odes up to E. E. Cummings—which he considers the finest of its type....
“Nearly a hundred poets are represented, a number of them in Pound’s own translations, with emphasis on the Greek and Latin, Chinese, Troubadour, Renaissance, and Elizabethan. ... Of particular interest are the notes on certain of the poems and poets which Pound has supplied in comment on his selections.” (Dust-jacket) Of Pound’s own translations only Godeschalk’s “Sequaire,” p. 7576, and Pietro Metastasio’s “‘Age of Gold,” p. 177, are printed here complete for the first time in book form. Pound’s “A Note on [Thomas] Hardy and [Ford Madox] Ford” is printed as “Appendix I,” pp. 325-9. “Appendix V: Selections [by Marcella Spann] from the Criticism of Ezra Pound,” pp. 337-40, is chosen chiefly from the ABC of Reading, but includes two notes, here published for the first time, “from the Pound notebooks, 5 February 1956,” p. 338.
b. Paperbound copies
Title-page as in hardbound copies. 1 blank leaf, xxii, 353 pp., 2 leaves, 1 blank leaf. 20.4 x 13.7 cm. Heavy white paper wrappers printed in black and grey on page [i] and on spine, and in black on page [iv]. Published 12 November 1964 at $2.75 as New Directions Paperbook 126; 6000 copies printed. Verso of title-leaf as in hardbound copies. Contents as in hardbound copies but with “New Directions Paperbooks,” 2 leaves following page [35,4].
Content is now editable.