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A WITNESS TREE.
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1942). 220 x 143 mm. (8 3/4 x 5 3/4"). 1 p.l., 91, [1] pp. First Trade Edition.
Publisher's blue buckram, cover and spine lettered in gold. In original dust jacket, clipped but retaining price. With frontispiece portrait drawing by Enit Kaufman. Ink presentation inscription on front flyleaf: "For Owen Dodson/ from / Ellen / Irene Diggs/ 1942 Atlanta." Crane A25.1 A very fine volume in a very good jacket (the jacket chipped at spine ends, corners, and along top edge of the back panel).
This is an excellent copy of Frost's seventh poetry collection and his fourth Pulitzer Prize-winning work, reflecting the author's youthful energy modified by the wisdom of maturity. It is also an extremely significant copy in terms of provenance, bearing a gift inscription that ties it to two major 20th century Black writers. The volume was published just a few years after three tragedies in Frost's life: the death of his daughter Marjorie in 1934, the death of his wife Elinor in 1938, and the death by suicide of his son Carol in 1940. Despite these losses, Frost continued to work and even found love again--with his secretary, Kay Morrison, to whom the present work is dedicated. The most famous poem in this collection,"The Gift Outright," was read by Frost at President Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. As indicated by the flyleaf inscription, our copy was given to poet and playwright Owen Dodson (1914-83) by Ellen Irene Diggs (1906-98), a groundbreaking historian, sociologist, and anthropologist. Diggs spent a decade working at the University of Atlanta with W. E. B. Du Bois, whose output there and elsewhere of African-American-related sociological writings was as profound as it was prolific. Dodson had taught at the same university from 1939-41, and presumably this is the time and place where he and Diggs had become acquainted. The writer of more than 35 plays and libretti, Dodson "influenced the course of African-American drama" in the period after the Harlem Renaissance, and had a ''tremendous impact on black theater," according to his New York Times obituary. Later, this copy passed into the library of two other American poets, Laure-Anne Bosselaar (b. 1943) and her husband Kurt Brown (1944-2013). Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, and editor who has published numerous works of poetry in multiple languages, including five collections of her own works. She has been given various prizes and recognitions (Pushcart, Isabella Gardner, Breadloaf) and was named Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara in 2019. Sometimes publishing jointly with Bosselaar, Brown was also a prolific poet and editor of anthologies, as well as the founder and first director of the Aspen Writer's Conference, playing a pivotal role in shaping its early vision and establishing Aspen as a literary center. (ST20338-052)
Price: $950.00