{
  "full": "\n**CONRAD AIKEN, ed. MODERN AMERICAN POETS. 1927–1940. MODERN AMERICAN POETRY. 1940–1945. TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY. 1945– . (ML 127)** \n\n#### 137.1a. First printing (1927) \n\n[within double rules] MODERN | AMERICAN POETS | [rule] | SELECTED BY | CONRAD AIKEN | [rule] | [torchbearer A2] | [rule] | THE MODERN LIBRARY | PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK \n\nPp. [i–iv] v–xiv, [1–2] 3–367 [368–370]. [1–12]16 \n\n[i] half title; [ii] pub. note A4; [iii] title; [iv] *Introduction Copyright, 1927, by* | *Modern Library, Inc.* | [short double rule] | *First Modern Library Edition* | 1927; v–ix PREFACE signed p. ix: Conrad Aiken.; [x] blank; xi–xiv CONTENTS; [1] part title: EMILY DICKINSON; [2] blank; 3–367 text; [368–370] blank. \n\n*Contents (poets and number of poems):* Emily Dickinson (13), Edwin Arlington Robinson (9), Anna Hempstead Branch (2), Amy Lowell (7), Robert Frost (8), Vachel Lindsay (2), Alfred Kreymborg (12), Wallace Stevens (5), William Carlos Williams (1), John Gould Fletcher (6), H. D. (7), T. S. Eliot (6), Conrad Aiken (10), Edna St. Vincent Millay (1), Maxwell Bodenheim (6). \n\n*Jacket A:* Uniform typographic jacket B. Jacket title: *Modern American Poetry.* \n\n> Text on front:
  *This anthology includes contributions by* \nCONRAD AIKEN
 MAXWELL BODENHEIM
 ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH
 H. D.
 EMILY DICKINSON
 T. S. ELIOT
 JOHN GOULD FLETCHER
 ROBERT FROST
 ALFRED KREYMBORG
 VACHEL LINDSAY
 AMY LOWELL
 EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
 WALLACE STEVENS
 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
  \n\nAt no time in the history of American letters has there been a poetic group so important or so heterogeneous, and no further proof than this collection is needed to indicate that American poetry, at the moment, is as vigorous and varied as any in the world. (*Spring 1927*) \n\n*Jacket B:* Uniform typographic jacket D. Jacket title: *Modern American Poetry*. (*Spring 1929*) \n\n*Jacket C:* Non-pictorial in dark bluish green (165) and black on cream paper with title and decorations in reverse on inset dark bluish green panel; other lettering in black, borders in dark bluish green. Jacket title: *An Anthology of Modern American Poetry*. \n\n> Front flap:
 The vigor and diversity of contemporary American poetry is made strikingly manifest in this anthology. The selections by Conrad Aiken are distinguished for their good taste and the wide range of poetic gifts they reveal. Each of the poets in this volume is generously represented by from a few to a dozen or more poems, an unusual feature in an anthology and one which does greater justice to the whole range of the poet’s work than would the selection of the familiar, isolated poem. (*Spring 1935*) \n\nOriginally published in London by Martin Secker, 1922. ML edition printed from plates made from a new typesetting with the poets arranged chronologically instead of alphabetically, the addition of ten poems by Aiken, a few other additions and deletions, and minor revisions in Aiken’s preface. Published February 1927. *WR* 12 March 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. \n\nCerf offered Aiken royalties of 8 cents a copy for *Modern American Poets* and indicated that the ML was prepared to spend up to \\$700 for permissions. He anticipated sales of close to 5,000 copies a year. He urged Aiken to include his own poetry, which had been omitted from the Secker edition, and noted that he wouldn’t care if William Carlos Williams and Arturo Giovannitti were omitted (Cerf to Aiken, 12 March 1926). Aiken agreed to omit Giovannitti, who was represented by a single poem in the Secker edition, but not Williams; however, the number of Williams’s poems was reduced from seven to one. Other revisions consisted of the addition of Amy Lowell’s “The City of Falling Leaves,” bringing the number of her poems to seven, and the substitution of T. S. Eliot’s “Gerontion” and “The Hollow Men” for “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” increasing the number of his poems from five to six. \n\nAiken expressed interest in including Ezra Pound but wasn’t sure that permissions could be secured (Aiken to Cerf, 6 April 1926). In the preface to the Secker edition he stated: “I regret extremely that I have been unable to secure the permissions of Mr Edgar Lee Masters and Mr Ezra Pound for a selection from their work: both of them obviously belong in this book. I feel that I must apologize, also, for the absence of Mr Carl Sandburg, an absence for which my own critical perversity is alone responsible. Mr Sandburg’s poetry interests me in the mass, if I may put it so, but disappoints me in the item” (p. vi). The preface to the ML edition reads: “I feel that I must apologize for the absence of Mr. Carl Sandburg, Mr. Ezra Pound, and Mr. Edgar Lee Masters, an absence for which my own critical perversity is alone responsible. The work of these three poets interests me in the mass, if I may put it so, but disappoints me in the item” (p. vi). The revised edition (137.2) published in spring 1945 includes eleven poems by Pound and four by Sandburg but none by Masters. \n\nLater in 1945 Cerf refused to allow Aiken to include any of Pound’s poems in the ML Giant, *An Anthology of Famous English and American Poetry* (G68), the American portion of which consisted of a repackaging of Aiken’s *Comprehensive Anthology of American Poetry* (169.2). \n\n#### 137.1b. Title page reset; title changed: *Modern American Poetry* (1940) \n\n[torchbearer D5] | [6-line title and statement of responsibility within single rules] MODERN | AMERICAN | POETRY | SELECTED | BY | CONRAD AIKEN | [below frame] THE MODERN LIBRARY \n\nPagination and collation as 137.1a. \n\nContents as 137.1a except: [ii] blank; [iv] INTRODUCTION, COPYRIGHT, 1927, | BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC. \n\n*Jacket:* Typographic in deep reddish orange (36) and black on cream paper; title in reverse on red panel at upper left, other lettering in black. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal. Jacket title: *An Anthology of Modern American Poetry*. \n\n> Front flap as 137.1a jacket C. (*Spring 1940*) \n\n#### 137.2. Revised edition; title changed to *Twentieth-Century American Poetry* (1945) \n\n[within a frame of row ornaments] *TWENTIETH-CENTURY* | AMERICAN | POETRY | [short decorative rule] | *Edited, and with a Preface, by* | *Conrad Aiken* | [short decorative rule] | [torchbearer E3] | THE MODERN LIBRARY | *New York* \n\nPp. [i–iv] v–xx, [1–2] 3–410 [411–412]. [1–13]16 [14]8 \n\n[i] half title; [ii] blank; [iii] title; [iv] *Copyright, 1944, by Random House, Inc.* | *First Modern Library Edition, 1944*; v–ix *ACKNOWLEDGMENTS*; [x] blank; xi–xviii *CONTENTS*; xix–xx *PREFACE* signed p. xx: CONRAD AIKEN | *Brewster, Massachusetts.*; [1] fly title; [2] blank; 3–400 text; 401–402 *INDEX OF POETS*; 403–410 *INDEX OF FIRST LINES*; [411–412] blank. \n\n*Contents (poets and number of poems):* Emily Dickinson (23), Edwin Arlington Robinson (5), Anna Hempstead Branch (1), \\*George Santayana (2), \\*Trumbull Stickney (12), Amy Lowell (2), Robert Frost (15), \\*Carl Sandburg (4), Vachel Lindsay (2), Wallace Stevens (8), \\*Witter Bynner (5), William Carlos Williams (1), \\*Elinor Wylie (8), \\*Ezra Pound (11), Alfred Kreymborg (3), John Gould Fletcher (3), H. D. (4), \\*Marianne Moore (4), \\*Robinson Jeffers (4), \\*Marsden Hartley (2), T. S. Eliot (10), \\*John Crowe Ransom (7), Conrad Aiken (2), Edna St. Vincent Millay (3), \\*Archibald MacLeish (5), \\*Mark Van Doren (4), \\*E. E. Cummings (5), \\*H. Phelps Putnam (3), \\*Robert Hillyer (1), \\*Lee Anderson (1), \\*Edmund Wilson (3), \\*Louise Bogan (2), \\*Horace Gregory (3), \\*Malcolm Cowley (3), \\*Theodore Spencer (3), \\*R. P. Blackmur (3), \\*John Peale Bishop (4), \\*Yvor Winters (3), \\*John Wheelwright (2), \\*Allen Tate (1), \\*Hart Crane (6), \\*Leonie Adams (2), \\*Oscar Williams (5), \\*Marya Zaturenska (2), \\*Howard Baker (1), \\*Robert Penn Warren (3), \\*Kenneth Patchen (3), \\*Delmore Schwartz (4), \\*Richard Eberhart (4), \\*Muriel Rukeyser (2), \\*Karl Jay Shapiro (7), \\*John Malcolm Brinnin (3), \\*Harry Brown (2), \\*Lloyd Frankenberg (3), José Garcia Villa (8). *Note:* \\*Poets added in revised edition. Omitted from revised edition: Maxwell Bodenheim. \n\n*Jacket:* As 137.1b with new title and revised text on front. Front flap as 137.1a except last sentence revised as follows: “Each of the poets in this volume is generously represented by from a few to a dozen or more poems, and their names constitute an honor roll of writers who have given to modern American poetry the richest meaning of our own time.” (*Fall 1951*) \n\n> Front flap revised with last clause replaced as follows: 
 “Their names constitute an honor roll of writers who have given to our national poetry a new intensity and strength. They speak for a half century of growth in America.” (*Fall 1955*) \n\nOriginal ML anthology. Published March 1945. *WR* not found. First printing: 3,000 copies. \n\nAiken suggested revising and modernizing *Modern American Poets* in 1932 (Aiken to Cerf, 6 March 1932), but Cerf did not pursue the idea until fall 1943, when Aiken revised both of his ML anthologies. Poets that Aiken wanted to add to the twentieth-century anthology included Pound, Archibald MacLeish, John Crowe Ransom, and Marianne Moore. He indicated that he would increase the number of poems by Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot, cut back Alfred Kreymborg and James Gould Fletcher, and eliminate Maxwell Bodenheim altogether (Aiken to Cerf, 18 November 1943). He also expressed the intention of reducing the number of his own poems. However, when *Twentieth-Century American Poetry* was in galley proofs Linscott pointed out that Aiken occupied more space than any poet except Eliot (Linscott to Aiken, 20 September 1944). At that point Aiken eliminated all but two of his own poems. \n\nWartime paper shortages prevented the ML from keeping all of its titles in print. By 1944 over a hundred titles were out of stock, and ML authors could no longer count on regular royalty income. Aiken wrote that fall, “What’s this gloomy news that the anthologies and other Mod Lib titles are going out of print, for lack of paper. This is indeed serious for us, as that their semi-annual royalty is practically our lifeline, and I don’t believe god will look after us if the Mod Lib doesn’t. Could you let me know what the situation really is, please sir? Will we get any royalties at all? Are the new editions coming out this year, or ever? Heaven have mercy upon us. This would be a body blow” (Aiken to Linscott, 4 November 1944). Linscott assured him that both of his ML anthologies were in print and that the revised editions would be printed when current stocks were exhausted (Linscott, 8 November 1944). \n\nThe revised editions, both of which had 1944 copyright dates, appeared early in 1945 and sold out quickly. The ML hoped to make two additional printings of each anthology for a total of 21,000 copies for the year, but Linscott warned: “In view of the fluctuating paper situation and the possibility that there will be another drastic cut before the end of the year, it is difficult even to speculate on the number of your anthologies which we shall be able to print. . . . Please don’t count too heavily on these two additional printings, as there are so many demands that it may be simply impossible to allocate the necessary paper” (Linscott to Aiken, 19 March 1945). \n\n*Twentieth-Century American Poetry* was out of stock for about six months in 1946, and the ML advanced Aiken \\$500 against 1947 royalties to help him get back to the United States from England (Linscott to Aiken, 6 November 1946). Not until fall 1948 could the ML announce, “Every title in the Modern Library and the Modern Library Giants is now in stock for the first time since the war” (*PW*, 18 September 1948, p. 1095). \n\n#### 137.3a. Revised edition (1963) \n\nTWENTIETH-CENTURY | AMERICAN | POETRY | [short decorative rule] | *Edited, and with a Preface, by* | *Conrad Aiken* | [torchbearer H] | *Modern Library* | *New York* \n\nPp. [i–iv] v–xxii, [1–2] 3–552 [553–554]. [1]16 [2–9]32 [10]16 \n\n[i] half title; [ii] blank; [iii] title; [iv] *Copyright, 1944, 1963, by Random House, Inc.*; v–x *ACKNOWLEDGMENTS*; [xi]–xix *CONTENTS*; [xx] blank; [xxi]–xxii *PREFACE* signed p. xxii: Conrad Aiken | *Brewster, Massachusetts*; [1] fly title; [2] proem: THE POET’S TESTAMENT signed: George Santayana; 3–541 text; [542] blank; 543 *INDEX OF POETS*; [544] blank; [545–552] *INDEX OF FIRST LINES*; [553–554] ML Giants list. (*Spring 1963*) \n\n*Contents (poets and number of poems):* Emily Dickinson (23), Edwin Arlington Robinson (5), Trumbull Stickney (12), Amy Lowell (2), Robert Frost (15), Carl Sandburg (4), Vachel Lindsay (2), Wallace Stevens (9), William Carlos Williams (6), Ezra Pound (13), Alfred Kreymborg (2), John Gould Fletcher (2), H. D. (4), Marianne Moore (7), Robinson Jeffers (4), T. S. Eliot (10), John Crowe Ransom (7), Conrad Aiken (2), Edna St. Vincent Millay (3), Archibald MacLeish (6), Mark Van Doren (3), E. E. Cummings (5), H. Phelps Putnam (3), Louise Bogan (2), Horace Gregory (3), Malcolm Cowley (3), Theodore Spencer (3), R. P. Blackmur (3), John Peale Bishop (6), Yvor Winters (3), John Wheelwright (2), Allen Tate (6), Hart Crane (6), Leonie Adams (2), Oscar Williams (4), Marya Zaturenska (2), Howard Baker (1), Robert Penn Warren (4), Delmore Schwartz (7), Richard Eberhart (2), Muriel Rukeyser (2), Karl Shapiro (7), José Garcia Villa (8), \\*John Hall Wheelock (2), \\*Horatio Colony (5), \\*John L. Sweeney (3), \\*Stanley Kunitz (3), \\*Edward Doro (2), \\*Kenneth Burke (5), \\*J. V. Cunningham (3), \\*Gene Derwood (2), \\*Weldon Kees (9), \\*Elizabeth Bishop (2), \\*Robert Lowell (3), \\*Jean Garrigue (2), \\*Theodore Roethke (3), \\*Reuel Denney (2), \\*John Berryman (1), \\*James Merrill (4), \\*Howard Nemerov (4), \\*Richmond Lattimore (2), \\*Adrienne Cecile Rich (5), \\*Louis O. Coxe (3), \\*Daniel Berrigan (4), \\*John Ciardi (1), \\*May Swenson (3), \\*James Wright (4), \\*W. S. Merwin (3), \\*Richard Wilbur (7), \\*Hy Sobiloff (4), \\*Ruth Stone (4), \\*David Wagoner (2), \\*Ned O’Gorman (2), \\*Robert Bagg (2), \\*Charles Philbrick (1), \\*George Starbuck (1), \\*Theodore Weiss (3), \\*Donald Justice (4), \\*Galway Kinnell (3), \\*Ann Sexton (4), \\*Claire McAllister (3). *Note:* \\*Poets added to 1963 edition. Omitted from 1963 edition: Anna Hempstead Branch, George Santayana, Witter Bynner, Elinor Wylie, Marsden Hartley, Robert Hillyer, Lee Anderson, Edmund Wilson, Kenneth Patchen, John Malcolm Brinnin, Harry Brown, Lloyd Frankenberg. \n\n*Jacket:* Non-pictorial in strong greenish blue (169), vivid greenish yellow (97) and black on coated white paper; title and editor in reverse, series in black, other lettering in vivid greenish yellow, all against strong greenish blue background. \n\n> Front flap:
 The variety and brilliance of contemporary American poetry are reflected in this new selection by Conrad Aiken. Eighty-one poets are presented, and of these, twenty-three now appear in an anthology for the first time. Mr. Aiken’s awareness of what is relevant, rather than what is merely “modish,” makes this anthology a critical as well as historical record of the growth and major tendencies of American poetry during the first half of this century. (*Spring 1963*) \n\nOriginal ML anthology. Published April 1963. *WR* 22 April 1963. First printing: 10,000 copies. \n\nAiken expressed interest in revising *Twentieth-Century American Poetry* in 1957 and raised the issue again shortly after Jason Epstein joined RH (Bernice Baumgarten to Cerf, 19 February 1957; Aiken to Epstein, 8 February 1959). Plans for a revised edition were under way by 1960. Epstein indicated that the cost of permissions for new poems would be at least \\$4,000. Aiken had to make certain that the length of the revised anthology did not exceed that of the previous edition by more than a third. If it exceeded that limit the revision would be regarded as a new collection, and it would require new permissions fees for *all* the poems (Epstein to Aiken, 12 September 1960). By cutting 80 pages from the 1945 text, Aiken was able to add about 200 pages of new material (Aiken to Epstein, 13 January 1962). \n\nAiken’s royalty was increased from 8 to 10 cents a copy. “In 1969 there was a printing of 5,000 copies. Since then there have been six printings totaling 26,575 copies.” The anthology was reprinted eight times before 1982 for a total of 47,000 copies in print (Bonnell and Bonnell, pp. 109, 120). \n\n#### 137.3b. Title page with Fujita torchbearer; 7½ inch format (1969/70) \n\nTitle as 137.3a except line 7: [torchbearer K]. \n\nPagination and collation as 137.3a. \n\nContents as 137.3a except: [iv] MODERN LIBRARY EDITION, 1963 | *Copyright 1944,* © *1963 by Random House, Inc.*; [553] biographical note; [554] blank. \n\n*Jacket:* Fujita non-pictorial jacket in vivid red (11), deep blue (179) and black on coated white paper with title in black, other lettering in vivid red, and two decorative curved bands in deep blue and vivid red within black single-rule frame, all against white background. \n\n> Front flap:
 The variety, richness and depth of contemporary American poetry are reflected in this collection by Conrad Aiken. A balanced choice from the works of the major poets gives an idea of the range of each; Frost, Eliot, Stevens, and Lowell, among others, are represented by substantial selections, while Mr. Aiken opens a broader view of American poetry through selections from a wide variety of lesser known and newer poets. \n> In all, eighty-one poets are presented, many of them for the first time in an anthology. The arrangement of this volume by Mr. Aiken, himself a much-honored poet, provides a critical as well as historical record of the major tendencies of American poetry during the first half of this century. \n\nAlso in the Modern Library
 Aiken, ed., *American Poetry 1671–1928* (1929–1944); *Comprehensive
 Anthology of American Poetry* (1945–1978) 169
 Aiken and Benét, eds., *Anthology of Famous English and American Poetry* (Giant, 1945–1971) G68 \n\n",
  "id": "137",
  "year": "1927",
  "label": "CONRAD AIKEN, ed. MODERN AMERICAN POETS. 1927–1940. MODERN AMERICAN POETRY. 1940–1945. TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY. 1945– . (ML 127)",
  "author": "CONRAD AIKEN, ed",
  "title": "MODERN AMERICAN POETS. 1927–1940. MODERN AMERICAN POETRY. 1940–1945. TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY.",
  "date": "1945– .",
  "something": "ML 127",
  "revisions": [],
  "type": "book"
}