DIADEMS AND FAGOTS

Santa Fe, NM: Privately Printed, 1921. First Edition. String-tied wrappers; 8vo. [13 pp.]. According to a letter from John Meem to Gus Blaisdell (Winters' longtime friend) "we had about 50 copies printed...distributed them among friends" [from Serendipity Catalogue 41]. Olavo Bilac translated from the Portuguese by John Meem. The Last Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard; translated from the French by Yvor Winters. Three items: (1) A complete copy in Near Fine condition, lightly toned, inscribed to a noted small fine press printer/publisher by Janet [Lewis] Winters with an accompanying post card dated April 2, 1991, conveying this copy ("Nancy Meem [John Meem's daughter] ... sent me half of her hoard"; (2) an incomplete, else easily Very Good copy missing one leaf therefore four of the poems; (3) a single leaf folded (proof?) with title page for the Bilac entries and poem IV of Winters translation. All housed in a custom linen folding case in matching slipcase with marbled-paper covers and printed paper spine label. With nineteen copies housed in institutions, extremely fragile, a rare survival, especially inscribed by Mrs. Winters herself a famous writer. This book published in the same year and place as (and possibly preceding) his first book, published by his friend Monroe Wheeler who also had been a student at the Univ. Chicago. Winters won the Bollingen Prize for his COLLECTED POEMS, but is better known as a critic and best known as a teacher of poets: Thom Gunn, Edgar Bowers, J. V. Cunningham and others associated with Stanford, many who came their because of Winters' reputation. Janet Lewis was also a noted poet, but best known for her THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE.