Beschreibung:

AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS AND REVISIONS IN PENCIL IN HIS OWN COPY OF HIS SELECTED POEMS, 1945, autograph pen and ink ownership inscription on front endpaper ('J.C. Ransom's book (Please return))', the two autograph poems 2 pages, 20 other pages with marks, autograph revisions, deletions and insertions, black buckram, octavo, book published 1945 (i) AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF HIS POEM 'VISION BY SWEETWATER', not printed in the volume, 16 lines in four four-line stanzas, cleanly crossed through in pencil Go and tell Robin to bring the girls over To Sweetwater, said my Aunt; and that was why It was like a dream of ladies sweeping by Willows and clouds, the meadow grass, the river... 'Vision by Sweetwater' is considered one of Ransom's best poems. Ransom is notable for the continual revision of his poems. The printed version has 'The willows, clouds, deep meadowgrass and river...' for the fourth line above. (ii) AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF HIS POEM 'WHAT DUCKS REQUIRE', 30 lines in five six-line stanzas, beginning 'Ducks require no ship and sail / Bellied on the foamy skies...', cleanly crossed through The fourth stanza preserves a number of readings different from the printed text. Other corrections, revisions and markings are: (iii) Short lines against ten titles in the Contents list. (iv) A list of thirty six titles apparently divided into' "Abstract" Poems', 'Theological & Philosophical' and 'The Youth', with four other titles erased. (v) 'Winter Remembered', three words revised. (vi) 'Miriam Tazewell', tick next to title. (vii) 'Necrological', twelve revisions to the last stanza. (viii) 'The Tall Girl', tick next to title. (ix) 'Emily Hardcastle, Spinster', sixteen verbal revisions to the last stanza, with other words erased. (x) 'Here Lies a Lady', tick next to title. (xi) 'Tom, Tom the Piper's Son', three verbal revisions. (xii) 'Conrad in Twilight', six verbal revisions. (xiii) 'Armageddon', insertion of an autograph four-line stanza and seven other verbal revisions. (xiv) 'Blue Girls', tick next to title. (xv) 'Eclogue', two changes of word order, twenty-nine verbal revisions and three corrections to punctuation. (xvi) 'Her Eyes', two verbal revisions. (xvii) 'Janet Waking', tick next to title. (xviii) 'Our Two Worthies', moving of a stanza. (xix) 'What Ducks Require', thirty-five verbal revisions (most of the differences between the printed text and the autograph manuscript herein) and two changes of punctuation. (xx) 'Of Margaret', thirteen verbal revisions, with about six other lines erased. (xxi) 'Painted Head', tick next to title. (xxii) 'Address to the Scholars of New England', tick next to title. RARE: no manuscripts by Ransom have been sold at auction in the last forty years at least. PROVENANCE: Gekoski. REFERENCE: John Crowe Ransom, Selected Poems, 1969.