Including Horace

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1919. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good +. First Edition. Hardcover. SCARCE. Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977) was an American poet, critic, and editor. In his early days, he held Marxist beliefs, writing for magazines such as The Masses,The Liberator, and The New Masses. He was a co-founder, in 1916, of The Seven Arts, a poetry magazine that is credited for introducing many new poets, including Robert Frost, In 1951, he was named during the hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigating communists subversion, and he was blacklisted by the television industry. Untermeyer was the author or editor of nearly 100 books. He and his wife, Bryna Ivens Untermeyer, created a number of books for young people, for the Golden Treasury of Children's Literature. In 1956 the Poetry Society of America awarded Untermeyer a Gold Medal. Untermeyer was known for his wit and his love of puns. In this volume, Including Horace, he makes ample use of that. In the Introduction, he praises Horace's satire and states that many academic translations do not do it justice. He then presents Integer Vitae as it might be translated in the style of 26 poets, including Browning, Coleridge, Shakespeare, Swinburne, Wilde, Poe, Whitman, Frost, Eliot, and others. In the second section, he loosely translates many other of Horace's Odes. The book's dedication is "to H.L. Mencken, more in sorrow than in anger." A very clever and amusing book. Very good plus in light blue paper covered boards with red lettering and design. Spine and edges of boards lightly sunned. Previous owner's name on front endpaper. Small pencil marks on a few pages. Poetry. POE1/5260.