Estampes

1948 · 008728 — New York: Printed at The Spiral Press 1948. First edition. Paperback. This original Robert Frost 1948 Christmas Card features a trifecta of virtues. This is the first published appearance of this poem which had an unusual text history detailed further below. Of 2275 copies printed for 9 different names this is one of 375 printed for the poet himself. Last but certainly not least this is not only one of Frost's copies but is inscribed and signed by him. Following the first and second printed lines on the presentation page "This new poem brings Holiday Greetings from Robert Frost December 1948" Frost wrote "the Hendersons" and signed "Robert Frost". <br /> <br />Condition is near fine. The gray-green card wraps are clean bright and sharp cornered the binding staple firmly intact and uncorroded. We note only a tiny blemish above the title on the front cover and a trivial hint of wear to the spine heel. The contents are crisp and clean lightly age-toned but with no spotting or soiling. <br /> <br />With the permission of Frost and his publishers in 1929 the Spiral Press began printing an annual Robert Frost Christmas Card featuring one of his poems. The tradition continued until 1962 Frost's final Christmas. Each annual Christmas poem publication was printed with varying names on the title page to accommodate their being sent by various Frost publishers artists and important friends. This copy is one of those printed for Frost himself. <br /> <br />The 1948 Christmas poem "Closed for Good" has “an unusual textual history.” After it was first printed here it appeared in a number of other Frost collections including in the 1949 edition of Complete Poems and the 1954 1955 and 1963 editions of selected poems. “In 1962 a revised version of ‘Closed for Good’ was published as part of In the Clearing. There the poem is altered; the first stanza lines 1-6 is deleted “And” becomes “They” in line 7 and the word “brush” becomes “spread” in line 24. <br /> <br />This is clearly how Frost wanted the poem to evolve. In the Clearing was his final new collection and in 1958 “Frost told Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant that he was ‘trying out a new version of four stanzas”. Nonetheless When Edward Connery Lathem’s edition of The Poetry of Robert Frost was published in 1969 the poem was presented in five stanzas and the two word changes restored to original. Given both Frost’s manifestly deliberative use of words and the fact that the poem is “a commentary on Frost’s inheritance from the past and his legacy to the future” the changes do not seem incidental. <br /> <br />By 1948 when this poem first appeared in his annual Christmas card and he inscribed this copy Robert Frost 1874-1963 had already entered the final decades of his life as “the most highly esteemed American poet of the twentieth century” with an accumulating hoard of academic and civic honors. Half a decade had passed since he had won his still-to-this-day-unrivalled fourth Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This is all the more remarkable given that he did not publish his first volume of poetry until he was nearly 40 years old. <br /> <br />References: Crane B19; Tuten and Zubizarreta; ANB <br/><br/> Printed at The Spiral Press paperback