POUND (Ezra).

Umbra. The Early Poems.

First edition. 8vo., 20x14cm, 128pp. Original linen spine over grey paper boards, lettered in blue, fore and lower edges untrimmed. London, Elkin Mathews, 1920.

£400.00

Very good, endpapers toned, a few faint spots to the top board.

Announcing itself on the title page as being ‘All the poems that [Pound] now wishes to keep in circulation from “Personae”, “Exultations”, “Ripostes”, etc.’ Umbra stands as Pound’s opportunity to define with intention the canonical substance of his early verse. Accordingly, the last leaf contains Pound’s typology of his oeuvre thus far, excepting the Cantos, a list likely also included as a justification of this choice over that of his publisher. Notable also are Pound’s translations of the troubadour Arnaut Daniel, praised by Dante in his Divine Comedy as ‘il miglior fabbro’ (’the better craftsman); Eliot would go on to use this phrase as an epigraph to The Waste Land, so as to pay direct tribute to Pound and his key role in composing the poem.

Stock No.
229225