first edition Hard Cover
1958 · New York
by Updike, John
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 8x5x0. First edition in first state jacket with 'two small children' on rear flap (this was later corrected to 'four children'). Edges and jacket flaps/reverse lightly foxed. 1958 Hard Cover. viii, 82 pp. Author's first book. "Updike remarked in an interview collected by the Poetry Foundation that "I began as a writer of light verse, and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the strictness and liveliness of the lesser form." The poet Thomas M. Disch noted that because Updike was such a well-known novelist, his poetry "could be mistaken as a hobby or a foible"; Disch saw Updike's light verse instead as a poetry of "epigrammatical lucidity." His poetry has been praised for its engagement with "a variety of forms and topics," its "wit and precision," and for its depiction of topics familiar to American readers. (Inventory #: 2305590)