Description
For sale: a Rare and Exceptional first hardcover edition, first printing of Wine from These Grapes by Edna St. Vincent Millay with no dust jacket. First Edition stated, 1934 Harper and Brothers printing with the I-I code and the First Edition statement on the copyright page. The Harper I-I code indicates the month (I – August) and the year (I = 1934) of the printing.
The book exterior is in Very Good condition with bright boards with spots on both covers, strong title ink on the complete paper label on a convex spine, toned page blocks, tight binding, mild spine tilt, , heavy edge wear, and lightly rubbed leather corners. The interior of the book is also in Very Good condition with the previous owner’s bookplate and date on the front paste down and the price on the rear end paper. No other marks, inscriptions, or other signs of ownership inside. The end papers and the interior pages are clean, supple and lightly toned.
No dust jacket.
Millay took the title Wine from These Grapes from one of her earlier poems “Buck in the Snow,” which suggests we live stained by our experiences until death. There is a focus on death and grieving in the first part of this collection. Millay seems to be finding grief unbearable, for everywhere she looks she finds signs of her missing friend. Walking in the woods where she studies the plants eases the poet’s pain, but the disease in her soul is never cured. She leaves us with the thought in “In the Grave No Flower” that the human corpse is not a seed.
In the middle of the collection are several poems that foresee that World War I was not the war to end wars. “Apostrophe to Man” sees that bacterial warfare and bombing cities from planes will return. “Conscientious Objector” is a manifesto for personal peace, which begins “I shall die, but that is all I shall do for death.”
The final part of the collection is the 18 stanza “Epitaph for the Race of Man.”
Ships promptly with s
