1926. · Chicago, IL
by Weinstock, Herbert
Chicago, IL, 1926.. Cloth and decorated cloth over boards. Endsheets show some tan offsetting, minor wear to tips, but a very good copy. First and only edition. Inscribed by the author on the front pastedown: "For Wallace Brockway who (often alone) comprehends - As ever - Herbert June 26, '26." Under the first line of the inscription appear the faint erased vestiges of another recipient's name. Weinstock (1905 - 1971) was a prolific translator, biographer and critic in the field of music, and beginning in 1943 for many years worked as music editor for Alfred A. Knopf. He had briefly attended the University of Chicago, but left to open his own short-lived bookshop at a point roughly coinciding with his publication of a collection of prose pieces (1925), and this privately published poem, dated the following year. The recipient of the inscription, Wallace Brockway (1905-1972), met Weinstock at the University of Chicago and went on to cowrite with him MEN OF MUSIC: THEIR LIVES, TIMES AND ACHIEVEMENTS (1939) and THE OPERA A HISTORY OF ITS CREATION AND PERFORMANCE (1941). This poem bears the author's printed dedication "To R.M." and at the conclusion, the printed date "June 10, 1926." The poem is, unfortunately, a rather bad love poem, incorporating such expressions as "pulsing ecstasy" and "refulgent trace." OCLC/Worldcat reports no institutional locations of this title.
(Inventory #: WRCLIT62587)