JIM'S BOOK A COLLECTION OF POEMS AND SHORT STORIES

Book Description

New York: Privately Printed, 1942.. Large octavo. Cloth and boards, lettered in gilt. Spine faintly sunned, with a few stray marks to the upper portions of boards, usual toning of the endsheets, but a very good copy. Enclosed in a custom half-morocco folding clamshell box. First edition of the poet's first book, privately printed by his father for presentation. At the time, Merrill was sixteen, and enrolled at Lawrenceville School. This copy bears the poet's presentation inscription, dated contemporary with publication: "To Miss Evans with love and Merry Christmas James Ingram Merrill. 1942." Though the exact number of copies printed has long been a subject of speculation, the bibliographers hypothesize that the edition consisted of "about 200 copies." Whatever the size of the edition, the author presented copies to friends over the following five decades in sufficient numbers to make those inscribed upon publication the very distinct -- and manifestly most desirable -- minority. The nature and occasion of the inscription suggests the recipient may have been a close family friend or teacher. HAGSTROM & BIXBY A1a.

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