The Modern Library Bibliography
MODERN LIBRARY SERIES 1927
1927
General
Cerf and Klopfer created Random House as a subsidiary of the Modern Library, Inc., to create and distribute “books of typographic excellence in America” (announcement on Random House letterhead with Rockwell Kent’s newly designed device of a ramshackle house, 24 January 1927). The letter to booksellers appears to be the first time Kent’s device was used. The second appearance was probably Random House’s “Announcement Number One” in February 1927 of seven limited editions from Nonesuch Press (reproduced in Cerf, At Random, p. 66). The officers of the new venture were Cerf, Klopfer, and Elmer Adler of the Pynson Printers. Random House became the exclusive American distributor for books published by Francis Meynell’s Nonesuch Press and the Golden Cockerel Press, the most important English private presses.
The first book published under the Random House imprint was a limited edition of Voltaire’s Candide with illustrations by Rockwell Kent. It was printed by Elmer Adler at his Pynson Printers and published in spring 1928. The colophon states: “Of this first book with imprint of Random House 1470 numbered copies are printed on all rag French paper and 95 coloured in the studio by the artist. Hand set in type designed by Lucien Bernhard, paragraph designs by Rockwell Kent; both cast by the Bauersche Giesserei, Frankfort. The composition and press work completed by the Pynson Printers in the month of April MCMXXVIII . . . New York.” Rockwell Kent’s signature appeared between the date and the place of publication.
The market for fine limited editions collapsed after the 1929 stock market crash, and Random House gradually turned toward trade publishing.
Two years after Cerf bought the ML from Horace Liveright he approached Liveright about buying the rest of the firm. Richard Simon, a former Boni & Liveright vice-president who co-founded Simon and Schuster in January 1924, also appears to have tried to buy Boni & Liveright around the same time. Liveright wrote to his second cousin and close friend Alfred Wallerstein (3 August 1927):
Since I saw you last, Bennett Cerf and Dick Simon asked me to put a price on the business, Bennett having offered me $250,000 and I believe that he could be gotten to pay $300,000. I wrestled with my soul a good deal and have come to the definite conclusion that publishing is a pretty fine vocation, that there is lots of chance of doing good in it, and that with proper management, while we won’t make a fortune, I should have a good steady safe income here. I am getting no younger and if I cut adrift from publishing, it might not have a good spiritual effect on my life. I’ve let everyone around the office know this and I’ll see that the publishing world at large knows it too. I’m thinking pretty much now in publishing terms, although, of course, the theatre does occupy some of my time and thoughts (Horace Liveright Papers, University of Pennsylvania Library, box 19, Wallerstein family folder).
Number of titles
Cerf and Klopfer added nineteen new titles and discontinued five titles from the Boni & Liveright period, bringing the total number of active titles to 139.
Format
All new ML titles except Lawrence, The Rainbow (138) were published in the standard format, with the binding measuring 6⅝ x 4⅜ in. (168 x 110 mm) and the leaves trimmed to 6½ x 4¼ in. (164 x 107 mm).
The ML’s standard format was enlarged in 1939. The new binding measured 7¼ x 4⅞ in. (182 x 123 mm) with a trim size of 7 x 4¾ in. (177 x 120 mm). In 1969 a taller, slightly slimmer format was introduced with the binding measuring 7½ x 4¾ in. (190 x 120 mm) and a trim size of 7¼ x 4½ in. (182 x 115 mm). All dimensions indicated are approximate.
Most books through 1954 were printed with 16 pages on each side of the sheet and bound in gatherings of 16 leaves (32 pages); by 1956 most books were being printed with 32 pages on each side of the sheet and bound in gatherings of 32 leaves (64 pages).
Title page
All new titles had the final version of Elmer Adler’s title page with the title in open-face type, Lucian Bernhard’s
Binding
Imitation leather in dark green, brown, or dark blue; spine lettering in gold and Bernhard’s torchbearer in gold on the front cover.
Endpaper
Bernhard endpaper printed in light yellowish brown.
Jacket
All new titles were published in
Price
95 cents.
Dating keys
(Spring) Hudson, Purple Land xHardy, Jude the Obscure. (Fall) Hardy, Jude the Obscure xDumas, Three Musketeers.
Titles sought, suggested, declined
The original American publishers turned down Cerf’s requests for reprint rights to several titles that the ML was able to publish between 1930 and 1933—Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (190); John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (195); Joseph Conrad, Victory (238); Anatole France, Penguin Island (253); and Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith (254). Scribner’s rejected Cerf’s request to reprint Ring Lardner’s How to Write Short Stories. It was not until 1941 that the ML was able to include Round Up, a 1929 collection that the ML published under the title The Collected Short Stories of Ring Lardner (344).
Cerf pursued other titles that never appeared in the series. Among these were a volume of plays by John Millington Synge, Francis Brett Young’s Crescent Moon, Paul Leicester Ford’s The Honorable Peter Stirling, Lytton Strachey’s Landmarks in French Literature, Lord Charnwood’s Abraham Lincoln, O. Henry’s The Trimmed Lamp, and William McFee’s Captain Macedoine’s Daughter.
William Lyon Phelps at Yale University suggested several titles, including Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and The American; Santayana, Soliloquies in England; Turgenev, A House of Gentlefolk; Bunyan, The Holy War; Swift, Gulliver’s Travels; Mill, On Liberty; and Wells, The Wheels of Chance (Phelps to Cerf, 9 February 1927). Of these The Turn of the Screw (189) and Gulliver’s Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books (212) were published in the ML in 1930 and 1931. Mill’s On Liberty was included in The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill (G45) in 1939 and in The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (537) in 1961.
The literary agency Brandt & Brandt suggested John Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer, but Cerf thought there was not enough demand to justify a ML edition (Cerf to Bernice Baumgarten, Brandt & Brandt, 26 May 1927). The ML later published three other titles by Dos Passos: Three Soldiers (248) in 1932, The 42nd Parallel (307) in 1937, and U.S.A. (G42) in 1939. Brandt & Brandt also suggested W. L. George’s Selected Short Stories (10 October 1926). Cerf declined, noting that George was well enough represented in the ML by A Bed of Roses (Cerf to Brandt & Brandt, 17 October 1927).
Klopfer wanted to add Christopher Morley’s novel Where the Blue Begins, but Doubleday, Page had assigned reprint rights to Grosset & Dunlap, whose dollar reprints were distributed through a wide variety of retail outlets (Klopfer to Morley, 5 November 1927). In contrast, the ML was sold primarily in bookstores and the book departments of major department stores.
Isador Feinstein (later widely known as the journalist I. F. Stone) offered to translate La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims and Memoirs for the ML (Feinstein to ML, 26 August 1927).
New titles
Cabell, Cream of the Jest (1927) 131
Cellini, Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1927) 132
Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter (1927) 133
Hudson, Purple Land (1927) 134
Nietzsche, Ecce Homo & The Birth of Tragedy (1927) 135
Spinoza, Philosophy (1927) 136
Aiken, ed., Modern American Poets (1927‑1940), Modern American Poetry (1940–1945), Twentieth-Century American Poetry (1945– ) 137
Lawrence, The Rainbow (1927) 138
Brown, House with the Green Shutters (1927) 139*
Hearn, Some Chinese Ghosts (1927) 140
Gourmont, Virgin Heart (1927) 141
Schreiner, Story of an African Farm (1927) 142
Bierce, In the Midst of Life (1927) 143
Meredith, Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1927) 144
Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1927) 145
Butler, Erewhon (1927) 146
Russell, Selected Papers (1927) 147
Saltus, Imperial Orgy (1927) 148
Renan, Life of Jesus (1927) 149
*Cerf and Klopfer published The House with the Green Shutters under the author’s full name George Douglas Brown rather than his better-known pseudonym George Douglas.
Discontinued
Atherton, Rezanov (1917)
Davidson, Poems (1924)
MacBean, Marjorie Fleming’s Book (1921)
Ouida, In a Winter City (1923)
Sinclair, The Belfry (1918)
Spring
131
JAMES BRANCH CABELL. THE CREAM OF THE JEST. 1927–1939. (ML 126)
131. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE CREAM OF | THE JEST | [rule] | BY | JAMES BRANCH CABELL | [rule] | INTRODUCTION | BY | HAROLD WARD | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–viii] ix–xii [xiii–xvi], [1–2] 3–250 [251–256]. [1–8]16 [9]8
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant A: Pagination and collation as 131. Contents (including First statement) as 131 except: [251–254] ML list. (Spring 1927) Note: The spring 1927 list has been seen on two subsequent printings: one as variant A except: [ii]
pub. note A5 ; another (with First statement omitted) as variant A except: [ii]pub. note A6 . It is possible that 131, 131 variant A, and perhaps copies withpub. note A5 were counted as part of the 8,000-copy first printing.
Variant B: Pagination and collation as 131. Contents as 131 except: [ii]
pub. note A6 ; [iv] manufacturing statement; [251–252] blank; [253–256] ML list. (Fall 1928)
Variant C: Pagination and collation as 131. Contents as 131 except: [ii]
pub. note A6 ; [iv] Copyright, 1917, by | JAMES BRANCH CABELL | [short double rule]; [1] part title: BOOK FIRST; [2] blank; [251–255] ML list; [256] blank. (Spring 1932) Note: The part title replaces the fly title used in earlier ML printings, and the verso of the leaf is blank.
Jacket A:
Text on front:
“The Cream of the Jest is in ground plan an attempt to lay bare the secret soul of Felix Kennaston, a successful novelist—not the Bovaryan pseudo-soul visible to his wife and his neighbors, but that esoteric spirit which transcends time and space, and has its adventures in the superworld of the imagination. Outwardly, Kennaston is a discreet and reputable man—a convinced monogamist, a dutiful householder, a docile Presbyterian. But within him there dwells an adventurer who ranges the whole of the visible universe, and a lover who has found his heart’s desire. Upon the framework of this story Mr. Cabell hangs the loot of much intellectual marauding—brilliant bits of irony, penetrating reflections upon faiths and ideas, a whole agnostic philosophy. It would be difficult to match this book in American fiction . . . A thing obviously written con amore joyously without regard to markets. The reader it will attract is precisely the reader most worth attracting. It is not a popular novel, not a story, not a mere time-killer: it is a piece of literature.” —H. L. Mencken. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
The charming vagaries of the inhabitants of James Branch Cabell’s mythical world are, like our own, gropings and blunderings toward the illusion of a better way of life. Guided by this sceptical and urbane philosopher, this man of humor and uncanny insight, we explore the enchanted kingdom of Poictesme, following the adventures of Felix Kennaston in quest of the eternal “something else.” Through the allegory of The Cream of the Jest we discover something of what is in this world and in the worlds desired by men. (Spring 1935)
Originally published by Robert M. McBride & Co., 1917; new bibliographical edition 1922 (the fifth McBride printing) with introduction by Harold Ward added and “slight revisions and additions” (Brussel, p. 55) in the text. ML edition (pp. [v]–250), including Ward’s introduction, printed from plates of the second McBride typesetting with McBride half title used as a fly title in early ML printings. Publication announced for January 1927. WR 12 March 1927. First printing: 8,000 copies. Discontinued 1 January 1940.
Cerf expressed interest in The Cream of the Jest as early as July 1925, but only as a second choice if he was unable to get Cabell’s Jurgen for the ML. At that time McBride was thinking about publishing a “cheap edition of all of Cabell’s books, and for that reason we do not want to do anything that would militate against the sale of such an edition” (Guy Holt, McBride, to Cerf, 24 August 1925). The cheap edition never appeared, and McBride authorized a ML edition of The Cream of the Jest the following year. Jurgen (271) was not included in the ML until 1934.
The first ML printing was in November 1926, unusually early for a title announced for January publication. November 1926 was also the date of the eighth McBride printing, so the ML may have joined the McBride print run. (The verso of the title pages of 131 and 131 variant A state “Eighth Printing | First Modern Library Edition | 1927”.) This might explain the inclusion of the outdated subject index in the first ML printing. The ML subject index in 131 and the spring 1927 list in 131 variant A occupy the same number of pages, but plates for the ML’s spring lists usually weren’t available as early as November.
In addition to the first printing of 8,000 copies, the RH archives (which may be incomplete) record printings of 5,000 copies each in August 1927 and September 1928, a printing of 2,000 copies in May 1930, and printings of 1,000 copies each in 1931, 1932, 1933, 1935, and 1937, for a total of at least 25,000 copies.
Sales of The Cream of the Jest during the first six months of 1928 placed it 33rd out of 147 ML titles.
Also in the Modern Library
Cabell, Beyond Life (1923–1935) 104
Cabell, Jurgen (1934–1943) 271
132
BENVENUTO CELLINI. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENVENUTO CELLINI. 1927–1970; 1985–1991. (ML 3; 150)
132a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] AUTOBIOGRAPHY | OF | BENVENUTO CELLINI | [rule] | TRANSLATED BY | JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS | [rule] | [
Pp. [6], [1–2] 3–485 [486–490]. [1–15]16 [16]8
[1] half title; [2]
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Thoroughly characteristic of its splendidly gifted and barbarically untameable author are these autobiographical memoirs—a production of the utmost energy, directness and racy animation, setting forth one of the most singular careers in all the annals of fine art. Cellini’s amours and hatreds, his passions and delights, his love of the sumptuous and the exquisite in art, his self–applause and self-assertion, running now and again into extravagances which it is impossible to credit, make this one of the most singular and fascinating books in existence. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B: Pictorial without horizontal borders or rules in black on pale blue (185) paper with inset illustration of a man with sword facing a woman at left. Signed: Davidson. (Spring 1929) Note: Used on copies sold as part of Three Renaissance Romances gift box, Christmas 1928 and 1929.
Jacket C:
Jacket D: Pictorial in moderate blue (182) and black on cream paper with inset illustration as jacket B; borders in moderate blue, lettering in black. (Fall 1932)
Front flap:
Of all the great personalities of the Renaissance, none more completely embodies the bold and sumptuous period than Benvenuto Cellini. His autobiography, like his work in rare jewels and marble, is a record of grandeur and beauty. It remains today, as it has for almost three centuries, unparalleled in literature as a chronicle of a life consecrated to passion and to pleasure, to vast and delicate creative enterprises and to dangerous escapades. Its vivacity and its untameable defiance give it an unchallenged first rank among all the autobiographies of the world. (Fall 1934)
Jacket E: Pictorial in dark grayish blue (187), light gray (264), medium gray (265), black and gold on coated white paper with inset black-and-white illustration shaded in light and medium gray of a man and woman embracing with Florentine rooftops in background; title and translator in reverse against dark grayish blue background, decorations in gold. Designed by Paul Galdone, April 1938; unsigned.
Front flap as 132a jacket D. (Spring 1939)
Symonds translation originally published in London, 1888. ML edition printed from plates made from a new typesetting. Published February 1927. WR 12 March 1927. First printing: 8,000 copies. Discontinued 1970; reissued 1985–91.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Ceillini was one of the ten best-selling titles in the ML during the first six months of 1928. It was in the third quarter of ML titles in terms of sales during the 18-month period May 1942–October 1943. During the 12-month period November 1951–October 1952 it ranked toward the top of the second quarter of ML titles in terms of sales. Sales totaled 126,884 copies by spring 1958.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini was shifted from ML 3 to ML 150 in fall 1943 when the 3-volume Shakespeare was published as ML 1–3.
132b. Title page reset (c. 1940)
[
Pagination and collation as 132a.
Contents as 132a except: [2] blank; [4] publication and manufacturing statements; [486–490] blank.
Jacket A: Larger version of 132a jacket E. (Spring 1942)
Jacket B: Fujita pictorial jacket in vivid reddish orange (34), deep yellowish green (132), medium gray (265), and black on coated white paper with inset oval portrait of Cellini in medium gray, black and white against deep yellowish green panel bordered in vivid reddish orange; lettering in vivid reddish orange and in reverse.
Front flap slightly revised from 132a jacket D.
132c. Reissue format (1985)
BENVENUTO CELLINI | [2-line title in reverse within single rules in reverse all on black rectangular panel] THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF | BENVENUTO CELLINI | [below panel] TRANSLATED BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS | [
Pagination as 132a. Perfect bound.
Contents as 132b except: [1] woodcut illustration by Stephen Alcorn of; [4] MODERN LIBRARY EDITION | November 1985.
Jacket: Pictorial on kraft paper in strong reddish brown (40) and black with inset woodcut illustration by Stephen Alcorn of Cellini holding a quill pen with sculpture on pedestal in background. Woodcut by Stephen Alcorn.
Front flap:
This remarkable biography, written between 1558 and 1562, reads like a picaresque novel. It is, in fact, one of the most important documents of the 16th century. Benvenuto Cellini, an audaciously self-serving Florentine goldsmith, tells of his escapades with the frankness and egoism characteristic of the Renaissance man, describing a life of unequaled grandeur, passion and adventure. It remains today one of the world masterpieces of autobiographical writing.
Published November 1985 at $9.95. ISBN 0-394-60528-4.
133
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. THE SCARLET LETTER. 1927–1971. (ML 93)
133.1a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE | SCARLET LETTER | [rule] | BY | NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | WILLIAM LYON PHELPS | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xvi, 1–303 [304]. [1–10]16
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant: Pagination and collation as 133.1a. Contents as 133.1a except: [iv] manufacturing statement only. (Balloon cloth binding D)
Jacket A:
Text on front:
“I consider Hawthorne the most consummate literary artist in American literature, and ‘The Scarlet Letter’ the greatest book ever written in the Western Hemisphere. It holds its place among the fifteen best novels of the world.” — William Lyon Phelps
The inclusion of “The Scarlett Letter” in this series adds the name of Hawthorne to a roster of American authors that already contains Poe, Whitman, James, Melville, Dreiser, Anderson, Hearn, Crane, Bierce, O’Neill, Hecht and Beebe. As many more American works will be added as can be found to be consistent with the standards of the Modern Library. (Spring 1927)
Front flap:
Of the few authors who have escaped the iconoclastic onslaughts of modern criticism, Nathaniel Hawthorne stands unassailed and with undiminished prestige among America’s immortals. Generations of readers have been moved by the austere and relentless power of The Scarlet Letter. For its revelation of a guilt-stricken attitude toward sin, for its intense human interest and its purity of diction and accuracy of analysis, for its interpretation of the Puritan way of life, the story of Hester Phrynne [sic] has inevitably become part of our national legacy. (Fall 1933)
Jacket B:
ML edition printed from plates made from a new typesetting. Published February 1927. WR 12 March 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1971/72.
When Cerf invited Phelps to write the introduction he indicated that The Scarlet Letter was being added to the series as part of “our endeavor to include . . . as many great American works as possible” and reminded the Yale professor that the ML had no introduction by him (Cerf to Phelps, 5 October 1926). Phelps missed the 15 November deadline by nearly a month and offered to waive the $50 fee (Phelps to Cerf, 12 December 1926), but Cerf sent it to him anyway.
The text of 133.1 is that of the second edition (Clark, p. 162).
The Scarlet Letter did not rank among the 99 best-selling ML titles during the first six months of 1928. During the 18-month period May 1942–October 1943 it was in the third quarter of ML titles in terms of sales. It ranked high in the second quarter if ML titles by the 12-month period November 1951–October 1952.
133.1b. Title page reset (1941)
THE | SCARLET | LETTER | by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE | Introduction by WILLIAM LYON PHELPS | [
Pagination and collation as 133.1a.
Contents as 133.1a except: [ii] blank; [iv] publication and manufacturing statements.
Jacket A: Non-pictorial in moderate red (15) and black on tan paper; title and statement of responsibility in reverse on inset moderate red panel, other lettering in black.
Front flap as 133.1a jackets A and B, including the misspelling “Phrynne”. (Spring 1941)
Jacket B: Pictorial in deep reddish orange (36), dark yellow (88), light bluish green (163), deep yellow green (118) and black on cream paper with title and author in deep reddish orange on inset cream panel bordered in dark yellow against black background; silhouette at foot of cream panel depicting eight figures, highlighted in light bluish green and deep yellow green, standing around a pillory. Statement on front panel: Introduction by WILLIAM LYON PHELPS. Signed: VA [Valenti Angelo]. (1946)
133.2. Text reset; Gerber introduction added (1950)
THE | SCARLET | LETTER | [short rule] | A ROMANCE | [short rule] | BY | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Introduction by | JOHN C. GERBER | Professor of English, | State University of Iowa | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xxxiv, [1–2] 3–300 [301–302]. [1–9]16 [10]8 [11]16
[i] half title; [ii] blank; [iii] title; [iv] Copyright, 1950, by Random House, Inc.; v Contents; [vi] blank; [vii]–xxxi Introduction | BY JOHN C. GERBER; [xxxii] blank; xxxiii–xxxiv Bibliography; [1] fly title; [2] blank; 3 Author’s Preface | TO THE SECOND EDITION; [4] blank; [5]–300 text; [301–302] blank.
Jacket: As 133.1b jacket B but front panel statement “Introduction by WILLIAM LYON PHELPS” omitted.
Front flap as 133.1a jackets A and B with spelling of “Prynne” corrected. (Spring 1951)
Front flap reset with “ruthless” substituted for “iconoclastic” in first sentence and an additional sentence added at the end: “For a century The Scarlet Letter has been an American classic.” (Fall 1954)
Originally published 1950 in MLCE and subsequently in the regular ML. Stein offered Gerber $150 to write the introduction (Stein to Gerber, 25 January 1950). He also sought Gerber’s advice about the text: “We are planning to reset the text of The Scarlet Letter for the college edition and I want to check with you on the best text available. Our present text is that of the second edition, though I suspect that it occasionally backslides” (Stein to Gerber, 6 March 1950). Gerber recommended the text of the third or stereotyped edition published by Ticknor, Reed and Fields in 1850 (Gerber to Stein, 11 April 1950). Stein indicated that the text, including the “Preface to the Second Edition,” was being set from the stereotyped edition (Stein to Gerber, 17 April 1950).
Also in the Modern Library
Hawthorne, Complete Novels and Selected Tales (Giant, 1937– ) G35
134
W. H. HUDSON. THE PURPLE LAND. 1927–1949. (ML 24)
134a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE PURPLE LAND | [rule] | BY | W. H. HUDSON | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | WILLIAM McFEE | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xvi, 1–389 [390]. [1–12]16 [13]8(8+3)
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant A: Pp. [i–iv] v–xvi, 1–389 [390–400]. [1–12]16 [13–14]8. Contents (including First statement) as 134a except: [390–400] blank. Note: Priority with 134a not established.
Variant B: Pp. [i–iv] v–xvi, 1–389 [390–392]. [1–12]16 [13]12. Contents (including First statement) as 134a except: [390–392] blank. Note: First statement omitted from later printings in balloon cloth binding.
Variant C: Pagination and collation as variant B. Contents as variant B except: [iv] manufacturing statement. (Balloon cloth binding)
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Joseph Conrad wrote of W. H. Hudson: “You can’t tell how this fellow gets his effects. He writes as the grass grows; the good God makes it there, and that is all there is to it.” Possibly it was because he was not overly occupied with “getting an effect”, that Hudson’s prose steals upon us like a change in the evening sky, or on the surface of the sea at sunrise.
The Purple Land of which Hudson writes has vanished and become the model republic of Uruguay. Roads and railways cut through the vast savannahs over which Hudson’s youthful hero rode. The incredibly innocent and romantic young ladies whom he met have borne daughters, who visit Paris and New York and take back with them shingled heads, golf-sticks and police dogs. The golden age of the Banda Oriental is gone, but it is preserved forever in the crystal clarity of these pages, the legacy of one of the great spirits of his age. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
Whether considered as a romance, a book of travel and geography, a naturalist’s excursion, or a nostalgic remembrance, The Purple Land retains through the years an undimmed charm. The crystalline quality of its prose, the leisurely pace at which it rambles through the wide savannahs and sweeping pampas give it the serene simplicity of greatness. It captures the spirit of a glamorous lost land and conveys the power and imaginative insight of its famous chronicler. The Purple Land is a companion volume in the Modern Library to Green Mansions (No. 89.) (Spring 1934)
Originally published in U.S. by E. P. Dutton and Co., 1905, using sheets of the second impression of the 1904 English edition; first American edition published by Dutton, 1916, with an introductory note by Theodore Roosevelt (Payne, p. 17). ML edition printed from plates made from a new typesetting. Published February 1927. WR 12 March 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued fall 1949.
Cerf offered McFee $50 to write the introduction to The Purple Land and also expressed interest in including one of his books, especially Captain Macedoine’s Daughter, in the ML (Cerf to McFee, 26 August 1926; McFee to Cerf, 28 August 1926). McFee’s Casuals of the Sea (223) was published in the ML in 1931.
Sales of The Purple Land during the first six months of 1928 placed it 67th out of 147 ML titles. During the 18-month period May 1942–October 1943 it was at the bottom of the third quarter of ML titles in terms of sales.
134b. Title page reset (c. 1941)
THE | PURPLE | LAND | BY W. H. HUDSON | INTRODUCTION BY | WILLIAM McFEE | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xvi, 1–389 [390–400]. [1–13]16
Contents as 134a except: [ii] blank; [iv] publication and manufacturing statements; [391–396] ML list; [397–398] ML Giants list; [399–400] blank. (Spring 1944)
Jacket: Non-pictorial in solid deep violet (208) on cream paper with lettering and torchbearer in reverse. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal. Front flap as 134a jacket B. (Fall 1944)
Also in the Modern Library
Hudson, Green Mansions (1921–1970) 90; (Illustrated ML, 1944–1950) IML 13
135
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. ECCE HOMO & THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY. 1927–1936. (ML 68)
135. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] ECCE HOMO | AND | THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY | [rule] | BY | FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE | [rule] | TRANSLATED BY | CLIFTON P. FADIMAN | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–x, [1–2] 3–340 [341–342]. [1–11]16
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant: Pagination and collation as 135. Contents as 135 except: [ii]
pub. note D5 ; [iv] copyright and First statements omitted; list of books by Nietzsche in ML added. (Balloon cloth binding)
Jacket A:
Text on front:
“ECCE HOMO” is a fitting summary of Nietzsche’s character as a man and his achievement as a thinker. “The Birth of Tragedy” is one of the most difficult of his works to obtain in an adequate translation. Both are presented here complete and unabridged.
Nietzsche’s other most important works may be obtained in Modern Library editions. “Thus Spake Zarathustra” is Volume Number 9, “Beyond Good and Evil” is Number 20, and “The Genealogy of Morals” is Number 62. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
Ecce Homo is a summary of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy and his most robust affirmation of life. In these respects it is a spiritual and intellectual autobiography that proclaims with vigorous emphasis the virtues of strength and pride. The juxtaposition of Ecce Homo and The Birth of Tragedy in one volume gains significance by opposite attitudes towards Richard Wagner. The latter work is dedicated to him “as my noble champion,” and the former contains many of Nietzsche’s most virulent attacks on the Master of Bayreuth. (Fall 1933)
Original ML translation. Published February 1927. WR 12 March 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1 January 1937 after the four Nietzsche volumes in the regular ML were repackaged as The Philosophy of Nietzsche (G32).
After discussing a ML edition of Nietzsche’s Dawn of Day with Macmillan, Cerf and Klopfer decided they wanted Ecce Homo instead. They hoped to use the translation that Macmillan imported from England and offered an advance of $200 against royalties of 4 cents a copy. They asked for rights to the translation for ten years and wanted assurance that Macmillan would not put Ecce Homo into its series of inexpensive reprints, Modern Readers Series (Klopfer to George P. Brett, Jr., Macmillan, 2 June 1926). Macmillan had to submit the offer to its parent firm in London but the response was slow in coming.
After waiting four months Cerf and Klopfer decided to commission their own translation (Klopfer to Brett, 5 October 1926). Irwin Edman of Columbia University was asked to suggest a translator. He recommended Horace Freiss, a colleague in the Philosophy Department. Freiss indicated that he could do it within six months, but this was longer than they wanted to wait. Edman then suggested Clifton Fadiman, one of his graduate students. Fadiman agreed to undertake the translation of Ecce Homo and The Birth of Tragedy and to submit the manuscript by 6 December.
Approval for use of the Macmillan translation arrived from London in mid-October, but Cerf and Klopfer had already made arrangements with Fadiman (Brett to Cerf, 14 October 1926; Cerf to Brett, 21 October 1926). Fadiman submitted his translation shortly after the deadline but in time for February publication. Cerf later noted that the ML edition of Ecce Homo & The Birth of Tragedy was the first time Fadiman’s name was attached to a literary work (“Trade Winds,” SRL, 22 May 1943, p. 37).
Also in the Modern Library
Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1917–) 9
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1917–1936) 28
Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals (1918–1936) 59
Nietzsche, Philosophy (Giant, 1937–1970) G32
Nietzsche, Basic Writings (Giant, 1968–) G113
136
SPINOZA. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA. 1927–1971. (ML 60)
136a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE PHILOSOPHY OF | SPINOZA | SELECTED FROM HIS CHIEF WORKS | [rule] | WITH A LIFE OF SPINOZA | AND AN INTRODUCTION BY | JOSEPH RATNER | OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–lxx, [1–2] 3–376 [377–378]. [1–9]16 [10]16(±16) [11–14]16
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant: Pagination as 136a. [1–14]16. Contents as 136a except: [1] part title: FIRST PART | ON GOD | [4-line epigraph from Spinoza in italic type, signed (on the fifth line) Spinoza.]. Note: The other epigraphs are also reset in italic type with the single-rule frame omitted. (Imitation leather binding; probably the second printing)
Format: The first printing is in the standard 6½ by 4¼ inch format with very narrow margins at the top and foot. Several later printings of 136a are about ¼ inch taller and wider than the standard format. Narrow margins were sometimes unavoidable when the ML printed from other publishers’ plates, but it was unusual for a typesetting designed for the ML to have such narrow margins. It is possible that the size of the type page was determined by an economic decision to limit the volume to fourteen gatherings of sixteen leaves each.
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Mr. Ratner remarks that “after having been one of the liberating thinkers of mankind who was read but not honored, Spinoza is fast becoming one of the canonized of mankind who are honored but not read.” This volume with its Life, Introduction, and Selections will immensely assist to get Spinoza read and understood as well as honored. If Mr. Ratner had not actually accomplished the task, I should not have thought it possible to render evident and outstanding the significant ideas of Spinoza, freed from obscuring technicalities; and to do it in such a way as to make clear to the reader their kinship with perplexing religious, moral and intellectual questions of our own day. But Mr. Ratner has had the happy thought to set the extracts from Spinoza’s Ethics between selections from his more popular writings on the scriptures, miracles, etc., on one hand, and his views of the state, government, freedom of thought and speech, etc., on the other. This fact alone illuminates the value of Spinoza’s thought for the present in an extraordinary way. I shall be disappointed if Mr. Ratner’s volume does not have a marked influence in bringing Spinoza out of the professional class-room and enabling him to serve as a precious companion to men and women who need the light and leading which he can give.” —John Dewey. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Jacket C: Pictorial philosophy jacket in moderate blue (182) and brown on tan paper depicting a helmeted woman holding a scroll and lamp; borders in moderate blue, lettering in brown. Signed: WC. (Fall 1932)
Front flap:
Professor Ratner’s masterly arrangement of Spinoza’s philosophy has become the standard text in leading universities throughout the country. John Dewey writes: “I shall be disappointed if Mr. Ratner’s volume does not have a marked influence in bringing Spinoza out of the professional class-room and enabling him to serve as a precious companion to men and women who need the light and leading which he can give.” (Spring 1935)
Original ML collection. Published February 1927. WR 12 March 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1971/72.
Ratner was born in 1901 and received his M.A. from Columbia University in 1923. He was a lecturer and doctoral student in the philosophy department at Columbia when he compiled The Philosophy of Spinoza. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1930.
Cerf asked Morris R. Cohen of the City College of New York to comment on Ratner’s manuscript. Cohen suggested leaving out some of the sections on Biblical interpretation and substituting “some sections from the tract on Politics e.g. the section of government by law in a democracy. I believe the latter will interest ‘Modern’ readers more than the excessive amount devoted to biblical interpretation” (Cohen to Cerf, 6 October 1926). A few months after publication Cerf wrote, “Spinoza continues to sell far in excess of our expectations” (Cerf to Ratner, 7 June 1927).
In April 1940, when he was an instructor at City College of New York, Ratner sold his rights to The Philosophy of Spinoza and John Dewey’s Intelligence in the Modern World (G41) for $500. He also retained the unearned advance for the Dewey volume, which had been published the previous year; the unearned advance appears to have amounted to $700. The two books became the absolute property of the ML, and Ratner received no further royalties. He had the option to buy back the contracts at any time within the next two years for $1,200 minus royalties accrued from 1 January 1940.
136b. Title page reset (1941)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF | SPINOZA | SELECTED FROM HIS CHIEF WORKS | With a Life of Spinoza and an Introduction by | JOSEPH RATNER of Columbia University | “All our modern philosophers, though often perhaps | unconsciously, see through the glasses which | Baruch Spinoza ground.” HEINE | [
Pagination as 136a. [1–14]16
Contents as 136a variant except: [ii] blank; [iv] COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
Variant: Pagination and collation as 136b. Contents as 136b except: [iv] COPYRIGHT 1927, 1954, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
Jacket: Non-pictorial in dark red (16) and black on cream paper with title in reverse on inset dark red panel, other lettering in black. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal.
Front flap as 136a jacket C. (Spring 1941)
Front flap revised with quotation from Dewey (which drops the hyphen from “class-room”) preceded by the following:
That saintly and exalted philosopher, Baruch de Spinoza, wrote and lived as a man of reason and a champion of the freedom of thought and speech. For three centuries his writings have been one of the great glories of the human spirit. The selections in this volume offer the essence of Spinoza’s contribution to philosophy as derived from Tractatus Theologica-Politicus, Improvement of the Understanding and Ethics. John Dewey wrote of this book: “I shall be disappointed . . .” (Fall 1953)
136c. Title page with Fujita torchbearer; 7½ inch format (1969/70)
Title as 135b except: [
Pagination as 136a. [1]16 [2–7]32 [8]16. Contents as 136b variant.
Jacket: As 136b in dark bluish green (165) and moderate yellow green (120) on coated white paper with title in reverse on inset dark bluish green panel, other lettering in moderate yellow green; Fujita torchbearer on spine.
Front flap as 136b revised text.
137
CONRAD AIKEN, ed. MODERN AMERICAN POETS. 1927–1940. MODERN AMERICAN POETRY. 1940–1945. TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY. 1945– . (ML 127)
137.1a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] MODERN | AMERICAN POETS | [rule] | SELECTED BY | CONRAD AIKEN | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xiv, [1–2] 3–367 [368–370]. [1–12]16
[i] half title; [ii]
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).
Jacket A:
Text on front:
This anthology includes contributions by
CONRAD 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
At 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)
Jacket B:
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.
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)
Originally 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.
Cerf 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.
Aiken 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.
Later 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).
137.1b. Title page reset; title changed: Modern American Poetry (1940)
[
Pagination and collation as 137.1a.
Contents as 137.1a except: [ii] blank; [iv] INTRODUCTION, COPYRIGHT, 1927, | BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
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.
Front flap as 137.1a jacket C. (Spring 1940)
137.2. Revised edition; title changed to Twentieth-Century American Poetry (1945)
[within a frame of row ornaments] TWENTIETH-CENTURY | AMERICAN | POETRY | [short decorative rule] | Edited, and with a Preface, by | Conrad Aiken | [short decorative rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xx, [1–2] 3–410 [411–412]. [1–13]16 [14]8
[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.
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.
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)
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)
Original ML anthology. Published March 1945. WR not found. First printing: 3,000 copies.
Aiken 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.
Wartime 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).
The 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).
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).
137.3a. Revised edition (1963)
TWENTIETH-CENTURY | AMERICAN | POETRY | [short decorative rule] | Edited, and with a Preface, by | Conrad Aiken | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xxii, [1–2] 3–552 [553–554]. [1]16 [2–9]32 [10]16
[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)
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.
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.
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)
Original ML anthology. Published April 1963. WR 22 April 1963. First printing: 10,000 copies.
Aiken 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).
Aiken’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).
137.3b. Title page with Fujita torchbearer; 7½ inch format (1969/70)
Title as 137.3a except line 7: [
Pagination and collation as 137.3a.
Contents as 137.3a except: [iv] MODERN LIBRARY EDITION, 1963 | Copyright 1944, © 1963 by Random House, Inc.; [553] biographical note; [554] blank.
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.
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.
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.
Also 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
138
D. H. LAWRENCE. THE RAINBOW. 1927–1971; 1980–1990. (ML 128)
138a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE RAINBOW | [rule] | BY | D. H. LAWRENCE | [rule] | [
Pp. [8], 1–467 [468–472]. [1–13]16 [14]8 [15]16 [16]8
[1] half title; [2]
Format: To accommodate the original plates, the trim size of The Rainbow increased to 6¾ x 4¼ in. (170 x 108 mm). After the balloon cloth binding was introduced in 1929 the trim size was widened to 6¾ x 4½ in. (170 x 113 mm).
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Ironically enough, it was the vain effort of a self-appointed censor to suppress “The Rainbow” that first called to the attention of the general public the enduring qualities of the book. It is one of those novels which England has produced that resembles its own immemorial oaks, with roots striking deep into the rich soil – the story of the Brangwens, whose menfolk, sturdy, lusty yeomen, might have had a place beside the knights and squires among the Canterbury Pilgrims. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
The fierce ecstasy and sensual violence that pervade the novels of D. H. Lawrence reach their highest and most lyrical note in The Rainbow. The sturdy generations of Nottingham Brangwens of whom Lawrence writes are men and women of his own blood, possessed as he was by the hot, fecund urgency of the flesh, and made aware of all the dark and mystical labyrinths of physical love. The Rainbow ranks with the most distinguished works of fiction in our language dealing with sex, exalted and unashamed. (Spring 1934)
Originally published in U.S. by B. W. Huebsch, 1915; reprinted from Huebsch plates by Thomas Seltzer, 1924; plates acquired by Albert & Charles Boni, 1926, and subsequently by Viking Press. ML edition (pp. [v]–467) printed from Huebsch/Seltzer/Boni/Viking plates. Publication announced for March 1927. WR 18 June 1927. First printing: 7,000 copies. Discontinued 1971/72; reissued 1980–90.
The ML arranged its printings with A. & C. Boni through March 1931 and Viking Press from December 1932. There was a second printing of 5,000 copies in December 1927 and five additional printings between November 1928 and March 1931 totaling 12,000 copies. Incomplete records of printings from the following decade suggest that sales declined to about 1,000 copies a year after 1932 and increased in the early 1940s to about 2,000 copies a year.
138b. Title page reset (1940)
THE | RAINBOW | BY | D. H. LAWRENCE | [
Pagination as 138a. [1–14]16 [15–16]8
Contents as 138a except: [2] blank; [4] COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY D. H. LAWRENCE; [468–472] blank.
Variant: Pagination as 138a. Contents as 138b except: [4] COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY D. H. LAWRENCE | COPYRIGHT, RENEWED, 1943, BY FRIEDA LAWRENCE; [469–470] ML Giants list; [471–472] blank. (Spring 1958)
Jacket: Non-pictorial in moderate blue (182) and black on cream paper; title in reverse on curved moderate blue panel at right, other lettering in black. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal. Front flap as 138a jacket B. (Spring 1940)
138c. Title page with Fujita torchbearer; 7½ inch format (1969/70)
THE | RAINBOW | BY | D. H. LAWRENCE | [
Pagination as 138a. [1]16 [2–6]32 [7–10]16.
Contents as 138b variant except: [471–472] blank. (Spring 1967)
Jacket: Non-pictorial on coated white paper with lettering in black and spectrum of five wavy bands in deep pink (3), strong orange (50), strong orange yellow (68), pale orange yellow (73), and brilliant yellow (83), all against white background. Front flap as 138a jacket B.
138d. Reissue format (1980)
THE | RAINBOW | BY | D. H. LAWRENCE | [
Pagination as 138a. Perfect bound.
Contents as 138b except: [4] COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY D. H. LAWRENCE | COPYRIGHT, RENEWED, 1943, BY FRIEDA LAWRENCE.
Jacket: Non-pictorial jacket on kraft paper with lettering in black and torchbearer in deep brown (56). Designed by R. D. Scudellari.
Front flap:
The Rainbow is D. H. Lawrence’s longest and most ambitious novel. He worked on it for three years, writing eight complete versions before he was satisfied. The story of three generations of a Nottingham family whose love affairs move backward and forward across the years, it is the first part of a trilogy that also includes Women in Love and Aaron’s Rod. Almost immediately upon its publication in 1915, it was prosecuted and banned as pornographic.
Published spring 1980 at $5.95. ISBN 0-394-60491-1.
Also in the Modern Library
Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (1923–1959; 1962–1990) 99
Lawrence, Women in Love (1937–1990) 302
Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1960–1990) 519
139
GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN. THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS. 1927–1930. (ML 129)
139a. First printing, trade issue (1927)
[within double rules] THE HOUSE WITH THE | GREEN SHUTTERS | [rule] | BY | GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | GEORGE BLAKE | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–vi] vii–xii, 1–314 [315–316]. [1–10]16 [11]4
[i] half title; [ii]
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Almost a quarter of a century has elapsed since this unique novel by George Brown gained, owing to the critical insight of Andrew Lang, rapid fame.
In what manner Brown might have developed, had he lived, and to what heights he might have attained, are beyond conjecture. His book reaches out to us with singular, doomed power. The terrible conclusion gathers inevitably, though here is no purification of tragedy, no beating drums of a new era. In re-reading the novel, one notes how the author avoided the romantic temptation of making the House itself subjective; until in the last sentence—and this is true to country superstition and to physical belief—it assumes a sudden ominous existence: “They gazed with blanched faces at the House with the Green Shutters, sitting dark there and terrible beneath the radiant arch of the dawn!”
The editors of the Modern Library consider this novel one of the finest in the entire series. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
139b. First printing, presentation issue (1927)
Title as 139a.
Pp. [i–ii], [2], [iii–vi] vii–xii, 1–314 [315–316]. [1]16(1+χ1) [2–10]16 [11]4 Note: Inserted leaf between pp. [ii] and [iii] with text facing the title page.
Contents as 139a except inserted leaf: [1] blank; [2] The Modern Library, Inc. takes pleasure in | presenting this edition of “The House with | the Green Shutters” to the delegates to the | American Booksellers’ Convention, and their | guests, at the banquet at the Hotel Commodore, | New York, on May 12, 1927.
Originally published in U.S. by McClure, Phillips & Co., 1901, with the author named as George Douglas. New bibliographical edition published by Thomas Seltzer, 1924; plates acquired by A. & C. Boni, 1926. ML edition (pp. [v], 1–314) printed from Seltzer/Boni plates. Publication announced for April 1927. WR 28 May 1927. First printing: 8,000 copies. Discontinued 1 January 1931.
It is not known why Cerf and Klopfer published The House with the Green Shutters under the author’s full name rather than his better-known pseudonym George Douglas.
Seltzer described The House with the Green Shutters as follows: “. . . this famous and extraordinary novel, from which, it is held, all modern fiction derives. It was the only long novel written by the young Scotchman before his early death. It came out in 1900, and was the first book that represented the reaction against the Victorian modes and moods” (Seltzer fall 1924 catalogue, p. 3). Cerf and Klopfer were equally enthusiastic. Cerf asked Heywood Broun to write the introduction to the ML edition, describing the work as “one of the swellest novels written in the past thirty years, and one that we hope to make twenty-five times as popular as it is, when we bring it out in the Modern Library” (Cerf to Broun, 26 October 1926).
Broun agreed to write the introduction (Broun to Cerf, 31 October 1926) but failed to submit it by the deadline. The Blake introduction used in its place was originally written as an article for the British periodical John O’London’s Weekly (8 March 1924, pp. 809–10) and never copyrighted in the United States. Cerf took Blake’s article, probably at the last moment, revised the opening paragraph, added a reference to the ML edition, and forwarded it to the printer. The origin of the introduction was not acknowledged and Blake received no payment for its use. When Blake learned that the ML had used his work he wrote a letter of protest to Saturday Review of Literature (“A Writer’s Grievance,” SRL, 10 September 1927, p. 110).
Cerf and Klopfer did everything they could to popularize The House with the Green Shutters, including distributing a portion of the first printing at the American Booksellers’ Convention in May 1927, but it failed to attract a wide audience. The first Modern Library printing of 8,000 copies was larger than average. Cerf and Klopfer ordered a second printing of 1,000 copies in April 1930, apparently still hoping that it might catch on, then admitted defeat and discontinued the book at the end of the year.
140
LAFCADIO HEARN. SOME CHINESE GHOSTS. 1927–1938. (ML 130)
140. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] SOME CHINESE | GHOSTS | [rule] | BY | LAFCADIO HEARN | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | MANUEL KOMROFF | [rule] | [
Pp. [6], i–ix [x], [7–13] 14–203 [204–206]. [1–6]16 [7]12
[1] half title; [2]
Variant: Pagination and collation as 140. Contents as 140 except: [4] First statement omitted; [175] part title: NOTES (Balloon cloth binding with fall 1930 jacket)
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Lafcadio Hearn was one of the very few white men who ever entered with real sympathy into the viewpoint of the East. As much as it was possible for an alien to do, he lived the actual daily life of an Oriental. His writing about the East has, in consequence, a peculiarly authoritative note.
“In preparing this volume”, he writes, “I sought especially to incorporate in it some of the weird beauty of the Chinese legend. . . . The humble traveler enters wonderingly into the vast and mysterious pleasure-grounds of Chinese fancy, and culls a few of the marvellous flowers there growing—a self-luminous hwa-wang, a black lily, a phosphoric rose or two—as souvenirs of his curious voyage”. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
Nowhere is Lafcadio Hearn’s love for the mystical and his intimacy with the weird and unseen so vividly realized as in this volume of Chinese tales of the supernatural. These legendary stories haunt the reader as much for their fragrant prose as for their subtle and pervasive power. The unreal takes on reality and the magical becomes plain by the wizardry of the Greek-Irish writer who found his spiritual home and last resting-place in the Orient. (Spring 1934)
Originally published by Roberts Brothers, 1887. New bibliographical edition published by Little, Brown & Co., 1906. Little, Brown edition paginated [i–vii] viii [ix–x] [11–13] 14–203 [204]. ML edition (pp. [5–6], [7]–203) printed from Little, Brown plates with page numeral “viii” removed from second page of Hearn’s preface. Published May 1927. WR 28 May 1927. First printing: 6,000 copies. Discontinued 1 January 1939.
The ML paid Little, Brown royalties of 7 cents a copy. Initial sales were good and a second printing of 3,000 copies was made in December 1927. The third and fourth printings for 1,000 copies each were completed in December 1930 and November 1931.
Some Chinese Ghosts sold 1,119 copies during the six-month period January–June 1928, placing it ninety-ninth out of 147 ML titles.
There was a final printing of jacket B in spring 1939 after the ML edition was discontinued. Most of the spring 1939 jackets are stamped “DISCONTINUED TITLE” and were used on copies sold as remainders.
141
REMY DE GOURMONT. A VIRGIN HEART. 1927–1932. (ML 131)
141. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] A VIRGIN HEART | [rule] | BY | REMY DE GOURMONT | [rule] | AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY | ALDOUS HUXLEY | [rule] | [
Pp. [1–8] 9–236 [237–240]. [1–7]16 [8]8
[1] half title; [2]
Jacket A:
Text on front:
REMY DE GOURMONT’S somewhat cerebral passions have ample scope in the suave story of the courtship of a presumably innocent young girl by a sophisticated middle-aged man, incorporated in “A Virgin Heart.” Contrary to the accepted notion and to the ideas of the amorous M. Hervart, the modest, gentle, unassuming Rose is surprised at nothing, except the tepidity and reserve of her lover. Abstraction, insinuation and particularity are inextricably commingled in M. de Gourmont’s limpid and flexibly articulated prose.
Aldous Huxley, undertaking the translation of the novel, conserved the flavor of the original and unobtrusively contributed to it the authentic energy of the English idiom. The result is a fresh product, almost a recreation of the French original, and may be considered almost as much a Huxley item as a De Gourmont.
(Remy de Gourmont’s “A Night in the Luxembourg” is volume Number 120 in the Modern Library) (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Huxley translation originally published by Nicholas L. Brown, 1921. New edition published by the Adelphi Co., 1925, shortly before its acquisition by Greenberg: Publisher; subsequently published by Greenberg. ML edition (pp. [5]–236) printed from Adelphi/Greenberg plates. Published June 1927. WR 16 July 1927. First printing: 6,000 copies. Discontinued 1 January 1933.
Edmund Wilson described Gourmont as “the most distinguished critical champion of the [Symbolist] movement” (Axel’s Castle, p. 22).
Huxley’s translation of A Virgin Heart appeared in the U.S. five years before Allen & Unwin published it in Britain.
The ML paid Greenberg royalties of 5 cents a copy on the first 5,000 copies and 4 cents a copy thereafter. Cerf asked Huxley, who translated A Virgin Heart, to write an introduction to the ML edition. Huxley declined on the grounds that he was very busy and would have to refresh his memory of A Virgin Heart and Gourmont’s other books (Huxley to Cerf, 29 March 1927). The ML edition was published without an introduction.
Greenberg wanted to remainder 700 copies of its edition less than a year after the ML edition was published. Cerf asked Greenberg to refrain, noting that a remainder sale “would have a disastrous effect upon our Modern Library edition of this book, and would not be living up to the spirit of the agreement that you made with us. . . . Our sale of this title has been none too spectacular” (Cerf to R. I. Warshow, Greenberg, 21 October 1927).
There were four subsequent printings of 1,000 copies each between November 1928 and December 1931. After A Virgin Heart was discontinued, Cerf described it as “a complete failure in the Modern Library” (Cerf to Warshow, 24 May 1933). Ten thousand copies were sold, most of them when it was new in the series (Cerf to Warshow, 19 June 1933).
Also in the Modern Library
Gourmont, Night in the Luxembourg (1926–1932) 125
142
OLIVE SCHREINER. THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM. 1927–1942. (ML 132)
142a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE STORY OF AN | AFRICAN FARM | [rule] | BY | OLIVE SCHREINER | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG | [rule] | [
Pp. [1–6] 7–14, [vii] viii–ix [x], [1–3] 4–5 [6], [15–17] 18–375 [376–378]. [1–11]16 [12]16(16+1.2)
[1] half title; [2]
< Variant A: Pagination as 142a except: [376–382]. [1–12]16 [13]4. Contents as 142a except: [2]
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Olive Schreiner finished “The Story of An African Farm” in 1879. Like many other good books, it was promptly rejected times without number, but was accepted finally by the London house of Chapman and Hall, on the advice of their reader, George Meredith.
The book was an immediate success. It is difficult to imagine that a work so singular in atmosphere, so potent in its passion, should ever have been anything else. To this day, it ranks as the great epic of a South Africa that has ceased to exist—a civilization that heard its sentence of death when gold was discovered on the Ridge of the White Waters. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
To George Meredith, then a publisher’s reader, belongs the credit for having saved from oblivion a manuscript that has become the spiritual expression of South Africa. Upon its publication in 1879, The Story of an African Farm won world-wide acclaim for its author as a writer of genius. The burning passion that illuminates its pages gives conviction to a story unique in the annals of literature. Olive Schreiner was a child of the South Africa that has ceased to exist; her book is its crowning monument and memorial. (Fall 1933)
Originally published in U.S. by Roberts Brothers, 1888, and from 1898 by Little, Brown & Co. ML edition (pp. [5], [vii]–ix, [1]–5, [15]–375) printed from Roberts Brothers/Little, Brown plates with the reset dedication, repaginated preliminaries, and the added fly title of the 1924 Little, Brown printing. Young’s introduction replaced the introduction by S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner on pp. 7–14 of the 1924 Little, Brown printing. Publication announced for July 1927. WR 20 August 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued fall 1942.
Young received the ML’s standard $50 fee for writing the introduction.
142b. Title page reset (1941)
THE STORY | OF AN | AFRICAN | FARM | BY | OLIVE SCHREINER | WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY | FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG | [
Pagination and collation as 142a variant B.
Contents as 142a variant except: [2] blank; [4] INTRODUCTION, COPYRIGHT, 1927, | BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC. (Spring 1941)
Jacket A: Non-pictorial in moderate blue (182) and brown on cream paper with title and additional lettering in reverse on curved brown panel at right; author, series and torchbearer in reverse against moderate blue background. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal.
Front flap as 142a jacket B. (1940).
Jacket B: As jacket A in moderate blue (182) and dark gray (266) on cream paper with curved dark gray panel at right; otherwise as jacket A. (Spring 1941)
143
AMBROSE BIERCE. IN THE MIDST OF LIFE. 1927–1957. (ML 133)
143a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] IN THE MIDST | OF LIFE | TALES OF SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS | [rule] | BY | AMBROSE BIERCE | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | GEORGE STERLING | [rule] | [
Pp. [8], i–xvi, [13–15] 16–403 [404]. [1–13]16
[1] half title; [2]
Contents: Soldiers. A Horseman in the Sky – An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge – Chickamauga – A Son of the Gods – One of the Missing – Killed at Resaca – The Affair at Coulter’s Notch – The Coup de Grâce – Parker Adderson, Philosopher – An Affair of Outposts – The Story of a Conscience – One Kind of Officer – One Officer, One Man – George Thurston – The Mocking–Bird. Civilians. The Man Out of the Nose – An Adventure at Brownville – The Famous Gilson Bequest – The Applicant – A Watcher by the Dead – The Man and the Snake – A Holy Terror – The Suitable Surroundings – The Boarded Window – A Lady from Red Horse – The Eyes of the Panther.
Jacket A:
Text on front:
“The question that starts to the lips of ninety-nine readers out of a hundred, even the best informed, will assuredly be: ‘Who is Ambrose Bierce?’ You may wander for years through literary circles and never meet anybody who has heard of him; and then you may hear some erudite student whisper in an awed voice: ‘Ambrose Bierce is the greatest modern prose writer!’” —Arnold Bennett
“Bierce was the first writer of fiction to treat war realistically. He antedated even Zola. . . . So far in this life, I have encountered no more thoroughgoing cynic than Bierce. Out of the spectacle of life about him he got an unflagging and Gargantuan joy”. —H. L. Mencken.
George Sterling, lifelong friend of Ambrose Bierce, wrote the introduction for this volume two weeks before his tragic death. It was the last writing from his pen. (Spring 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
More and more the fame of Ambrose Bierce grows, not so much from his fantastic life and mysterious death, but from his haunting and unforgettable tales. His art is candidly inhuman, yet the clarity and perfection of his style and his dramatic fervor give these “terror tales” a secure place among the classic short stories of literature. The first two stories in this volume— “A Horseman in the Sky” and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”—are generally considered Bierce’s best. (Fall 1935)
Originally published as Tales of Soldiers and Civilians by E. L. G. Steele, 1891. New edition with a revised selection of stories published as In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians by Neale Publishing Co., 1909 (The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, vol. 2); reprinted as a separate volume by Boni & Liveright, 1918, and Albert & Charles Boni, 1924. ML edition (pp. [5–8], [13]–403) printed from Neale/B&L/Boni plates. Publication announced for August 1927. WR 5 November 1927. First printing: 7,000 copies. Discontinued fall 1957.
William Chislett, Jr., of Albright College in Pennsylvania corresponded with the ML in 1926 about an anthology of Bierce’s writings that he had prepared, but he was unable to secure the necessary copyright permissions (RH box 72, Chislett folder).
143b. Title page reset (1940)
IN THE | MIDST | OF LIFE | Tales of | Soldiers and Civilians | BY | AMBROSE BIERCE | Introduction by | GEORGE STERLING | [
Pagination and collation as 143a.
Contents as 143a except: [2] blank; [4] COPYRIGHT 1909, BY A. AND C. BONI, INC. | COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
Jacket: Non-pictorial in dark reddish orange (38) and dark blue (183) on cream paper with lettering in reverse on dark blue panel tilted from right; background in dark reddish orange with series and torchbearer in reverse. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal.
Front flap as 143a jacket B. (Spring 1940)
144
GEORGE MEREDITH. THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 1927–1970. (ML 134)
144a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE ORDEAL OF | RICHARD FEVEREL | [rule] | BY | GEORGE MEREDITH | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–vii [viii], 1–592. [1–18]16 [19]12
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant: Pp. [i–iv] v–vii [viii], 1–592 [593–600]. [1–19]16. Contents as 144a except: [ii]
pub. note A6 ; [593–597] ML list; [598–600] blank. (Fall 1931)
Jacket A:
Text on front:
RICHARD FEVEREL is the first, as it is doubtless the favorite, of the astonishing succession of novels which placed Meredith among the demigods of English literature. Its essential theme is the question of a boy’s education, and the abortive attempt of a proud and opinionated father, hide-bound by theory and precept, to bring up his son through a system which controls all his early circumstances and represses many of the natural and wholesome impulses of adolescence.
The Modern Library reprints RICHARD FEVEREL from the first edition of the book, retaining all the passages written in the full glow and vigor of his prime, that Meredith excised in some of the later editions of the book. (Fall 1927)
Jacket B:
Jacket C: Pictorial in moderate yellow green (120) and black on cream paper depicting a young man earnestly clasping the hand of a young woman standing by a garden turnstile.
Front flap:
Enthusiasts for the novels of George Meredith stand firm in their preference for The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. Unanimously they agree that this study of adolescence is more than a penetrating psychological document; it is a vivid and absorbing dramatization of the conflict between two generations, made memorable by a glowing passion. After the first edition of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, several passages, essential to its full appreciation, were deleted. These have been entirely restored in the Modern Library version. (Spring 1935)
ML edition printed from plates made from a new typesetting. Publication announced for September 1927. WR 5 November 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1970/71.
The note about the text printed as the second paragraph of jacket A also appears on p. [iv] of all printings of 144a.
144b. Title page reset (1940)
THE ORDEAL | OF | RICHARD | FEVEREL | BY | GEORGE MEREDITH | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–vii [viii], 1–592 [593–600]. [1–18]16 [19–20]8
Contents as 144a except: [ii] blank; [iv] COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.; [593–597] ML list; [598–599] ML Giants list; [600] blank. (Spring 1940)
Jacket: Non-pictorial in dark blue (183) on cream paper with lettering and torchbearer in reverse against solid dark blue background. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal. Front flap as 144a jacket C. (Spring 1940)
144c. Stevenson introduction added (1950)
THE ORDEAL | OF | RICHARD FEVEREL | A History of Father and Son | By George Meredith | Introduction by | Lionel Stevenson | Professor of English and | Chairman, Department of English | University of Southern California | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xxviii, [2], 1–592 [593–594]. [1–18]16 [19]8 [20]16
Contents as 144a except: [ii] blank; [iv] Copyright, 1950, by Random House, Inc.; ix–xxvi INTRODUCTION | by Lionel Stevenson; xxvii–xxviii BIBLIOGRAPHY; [1] fly title; [2] blank; [593–594] blank.
Jacket: As 144b. (Spring 1940)
Front flap rewritten:
Devoted readers of the novels of George Meredith insist upon their preference for The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. Its appeal is ageless because it is a tale of adolescence and young love overcoming the prejudices and obstructions of an older generation; it is a psychological study as well as an idyll of youth. Written a century ago, this romantic story of thwarted and triumphant love still retains the glow of the best of the novels of this genre of its period. After the first edition of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, several passages, essential to its full appreciation, were deleted in subsequent printings. These have been entirely restored in the Modern Library volume. (Spring 1956)
Originally published 1950 in MLCE and subsequently in the regular ML. Stevenson received $150 for the introduction (Stein to Stevenson, 25 January 1950).
Also in the Modern Library
Meredith, Diana of the Crossways (1917–1956) 14
Meredith, The Egoist (1947–1970) 401
145
THOMAS HARDY. JUDE THE OBSCURE. 1927–1990. (ML 135)
145.1a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] JUDE THE OBSCURE | [rule] | BY | THOMAS HARDY | [rule] | [
Pp. [10], [1–3] 4–488 [489–494]. [1–15]16 [16]12
[1] half title; [2]
Variant: Pagination and collation as 145.1a. Contents as 145.1a except: [2]
pub. note A6 ; [4] copyright and First statements omitted. (Fall 1928). Note: The epigraph is shifted from the verso of the fly title to the verso of the part title (p. [2]) by fall 1930.
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Thomas Hardy’s conviction that men and women “are but helpless puppets in the hands of mischievous fate” is carried to its most relentless conclusion in “Jude the Obscure”. Such a storm arose after its publication in 1895 that Hardy swore he would never write another novel.
“Jude” is not for the reader who is approaching Hardy for the first time. But to the genuine lover of his writing, it occupies a place all its own, and the pathetic figure of little “Father Time” stands out as one of his most unforgettable creations.
(Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge” is Volume No. 17 in the Modern Library, and “The Return of the Native” is volume No. 121) (Fall 1928)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
The last colossus among the Victorians brooded upon humanity’s brave, pathetic struggle for existence and recorded it with a profound but suspended judgment. Obsessed as he was with the intricate and inexorable patterns woven by fate, he hewed out his monumental novels. By common consent, Jude the Obscure is his masterpiece. Since its publication in 1895, it has been accorded the world’s admiration and is acknowledged today as one of the most completely unbiased works of fiction in the English language on the complicated questions of sex and instinct. (Fall 1935)
Jacket C: Pictorial jacket in strong yellowish brown (74), deep reddish orange (36) and black on cream paper with inset wood engraving in black of a town street with cottage at left, tree at right and church tower in background; lettering in black and in reverse, all (including wood engraving) against strong yellowish brown background and enclosed in triple-rule frame in deep reddish orange. Signed: Galdone.
Front flap as jacket B. (Spring 1938)
Originally published in U.S. by Harper & Brothers, 1895. ML edition (145.1, pp. [5–7], [10]–488) printed from a set of 1895 Harper plates with illustrations omitted. Publication announced for September 1927. WR 5 November 1927. First printing: 10,000 copies. Discontinued 1990.
The ML paid Harper’s royalties of 8 cents a copy. There were six additional printings totaling 16,000 copies between 1928 and 1931; printings between 1932 and 1939 totaled 11,000 copies. The ML’s printers damaged the plate for p. 107 sometime between 1929 and 1932; the last three lines of that page are missing in one or more printings from that period. The plate was repaired after Klopfer pointed out the problem (Klopfer to Harper & Bros., 13 April 1933; A. W. Rushmore, Harper & Bros., to Klopfer, 17 April 1933).
145.1b. Title page reset (c. 1941)
JUDE | THE | OBSCURE | BY | THOMAS HARDY | [
Pagination and collation as 145.1a.
Contents as 145.1a variant except: [2] blank; [4] publication and manufacturing statements; [1] part title reset: PART I | AT MARYGREEN; [489–493] ML list; [494] blank. (Spring 1942)
Jacket: Probably enlarged version of 145.1a jacket C. (Not seen)
145.2. Text reset (1945)
JUDE THE | OBSCURE | by | THOMAS HARDY | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–vii [viii], [1–2] 3–503 [504]. [1–16]16
[i] half title; [ii] blank; [iii] title; [iv] COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY HARPER & BROTHERS | COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY THOMAS HARDY; v–vi Preface signed p. vi: T. H. | August, 1895.; vii Contents; [viii] blank; [1] fly title; [2] blank; 3–503 text; [504] blank.
Jacket: Enlarged version of 145.1a jacket C except background in deep orange yellow (69) and wood engraving against cream background.
Front flap as 145.1a jacket B. (Fall 1945)
Front flap revised:
Generally considered Thomas Hardy’s masterpiece, Jude the Obscure has held an honored place for six decades among the greatest modern novels in the English language. Its brooding concern with the strange and capricious turns of fate in Jude Fawley’s lifelong struggle against enormous odds in the search for happiness gives this tale of aspiration and defeat the quality of classic tragedy. (Fall 1953)
145.3a. Text reset (1967)
Jude | The Obscure | by Thomas Hardy | “The letter killeth” | Edited by Robert C. Slack | CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY | THE MODERN LIBRARY · New York [
Pp. [i–vi] vii–xxxv [xxxvi], [1–2] 3–438 [439–444]. [1]16 [2–5]32 [6]16 [7–8]32 [9]16
[i] half title; [ii] blank; [iii] title; [iv] © Copyright, 1967, by Random House, Inc.; [v] Contents; [vi] blank; vii–xxvi Introduction | [rule] | by Robert C. Slack dated p. xxvi: Pittsburgh February, 1967; xxvii–xxix Selected Bibliography; [xxx] blank; xxxi–xxxii Preface to the First Edition dated p. xxxii: August 1895.; xxxii (cont.)–xxxv Postscript signed p. xxxv: T. H. | April 1912.; [xxxvi] blank; [1] fly title; [2] blank; 3–438 text; [439–440] ML Giants list; [441–444] blank. (Spring 1967)
Jacket: Fujita non-pictorial jacket in vivid red (11), deep brown (56) and black on coated white paper with author in brown script, title in red and brown decorative lettering and series in black, all against white background.
Front flap incorporates first sentence of 145.2 revised text followed by:
It is, in Hardy’s own words, a story “of a deadly war waged with old Apostolic desperation between flesh and spirit.” Its brooding concern with the strange and capricious turns of fate in Jude Fawley’s lifelong struggle for dignity against enormous odds gives this tale of aspiration and defeat the quality of classic tragedy.
This Modern Library edition reproduces the text of the 1912 Wessex edition, which incorporated all of Hardy’s final revisions. The Introduction is by Robert C. Slack of Carnegie-Mellon University.
Printed from offset plates made from a new typesetting, following the text of the second edition (1903). Published November 1967.
Slack comments in the introduction about changes Hardy made between the 1895 first printing and the second edition in 1903. He states:
One scene in particular had offended many readers; Mrs. Oliphant branded it “more brutal in depravity than anything which the darkest slums could bring forth.” In the second edition of the novel (1903), Hardy quietly toned down this passage, and the alterations he made remained in the definitive text finally approved by the author in 1912. The scene is the one in which Arabella first makes Jude’s acquaintance by flinging the pizzle of a pig at him (Chapter vi of Part I). In the original version the franker imagery makes unmistakably clear the root of the attraction that Arabella has for Jude, and a modern reader may well find the original text more effective. A portion of the scene illustrates the difference:
[1895]
They met in the middle of the plank, and Jude held out his stick with the fragment of pig dangling therefrom, looking elsewhere the while, and faintly colouring.
She, too, looked in another direction, and took the piece as though ignorant of what her hand was doing. She hung it temporarily on the rail of the bridge, and then, by a species of mutual curiosity, they both turned, and regarded it.
‘You don’t think I threw it?’
‘O no.’
‘It belongs to father, and he med have been in a taking if had wanted it. He makes it into dubbin.’. . . They talked a little more and a little more, as they stood regarding the limp object dangling across the handrail of the bridge.
[1903]
They met in the middle of the plank, and Jude, tossing back her missile, seemed to expect her to explain why she had audaciously stopped him by this novel artillery instead of by hailing him.
But she, slyly looking in another direction, swayed herself backwards and forwards on her hand as it clutched the rail of the bridge; till, moved by amatory curiosity, she turned her eyes critically upon him.
‘You don’t think I would shy things at you?’
‘O no.’
‘We are doing this for my father, who doesn’t want anything thrown away.’. . . They talked a little more and a little more, as they stood regarding each other and leaning against the handrail of the bridge.
In the revision Hardy has intentionally subdued the piece of pig’s flesh, and the scene of course is weakened. . . . (Introduction, pp. xxi–xxii).
145.3b. Reissue format (1978)
Title as 145.3a with line 6 omitted and
Pagination as 145.3a. Perfect bound.
Contents as 145.3a except: [iv] First Modern Library Edition, November 1967 | © Copyright 1967 by Random House, Inc.; [439–444] blank.
Jacket: Non-pictorial jacket on kraft paper with lettering in very dark red (17) and torchbearer in deep brown (56). Designed by R. D. Scudellari.
Front flap slightly revised and abridged from 145.3a.
Published fall 1978 at $5.95. ISBN 0-394-60462-8.
Also in the Modern Library
Hardy, Mayor of Casterbridge (1917–1971) 17
Hardy, Return of the Native (1926–1970) 126
Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1932–1971; 1979–1986) 234
146
SAMUEL BUTLER. EREWHON. 1927–1932. EREWHON and EREWHON REVISITED. 1933–1970. (ML 136)
146a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] EREWHON | OR | OVER THE RANGE | [rule] | BY | SAMUEL BUTLER | [rule] | INTRODUCTION | BY | LEWIS MUMFORD | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–vi] vii–xxvii [xxviii], 1–308. [1–10]16 [11]8
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant: Pagination as 146a except: [309–316]. [1–10]16 [11]12. Contents as 146a except: [ii]
pub. note A6 ; [iv] copyright and First statements omitted; [309–313] ML list; [314–316] blank. (Fall 1931)
Jacket A:
Text on front:
“It is not wonderful that such a man as Butler should be the author of ‘Erewhon’, a shrewd and biting satire on modern life and thought—the best of its kind since ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ . . . To lash the age, to ridicule vain pretension, to expose hypocrisy, to deride humbug in education, politics, and religion, are tasks beyond most men’s powers; but occasionally, very occasionally, a bit of genuine satire secures for itself more than a passing nod of recognition. ‘Erewhon,’ I think, is such a satire.” (Fall 1927)
Jacket B:
Originally published in London, 1872, and in U.S. by E. P. Dutton & Co., 1907. ML edition printed from plates made from a new typesetting. Publication scheduled for October 1927. WR 28 January 1928. First printing: Not ascertained. Erewhon Revisited added 1933.
Mumford received $50 for the introduction. When Cerf paid him he wrote, “You are the first author in the history of the Modern Library who delivered an introduction on time, and along with the enclosed check for $50 go our sincere and amazed thanks to you” (Cerf to Mumford, 5 April 1927).
146b. Erewhon Revisited added (1933)
[within double rules] EREWHON | AND | EREWHON REVISITED | [rule] | BY | SAMUEL BUTLER | [rule] | INTRODUCTION | BY | LEWIS MUMFORD | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–vi] vii–xv [xvi], [6], xix–xxvii [xxviii], [2], 1–622. [1–20]16 [21]8
Contents as 146a except: [ii]
Jacket: Pictorial in moderate bluish green (164) and black on cream paper depicting a helmeted face with left half in black with feminine features and dove and olive branch on helmet and right half in moderate bluish green with male features contorted in anger and lightning bolts and snake on helmet; lettering in black except EREWHON in cream outlined in black, borders in moderate bluish green, all against cream background. (Spring 1933)
Front flap:
Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited, considered by many the most important works of their kind produced in the nineteenth century, won a place for their author as one of the great satirists of all time. Samuel Butler has been ranked in the glittering company of Voltaire and Swift, and, like his literary predecessors, he spared neither church nor state, literature or science from the attacks of his sharp wit and ironic commentaries. Underneath his irrepressible, malicious laughter however, he waged a serious war with bigotry, sham and stupidity. (Spring 1936)
Erewhon Revisited originally published in London, 1901, and in U.S. by E. P. Dutton & Co., 1910. Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited first published together in Everyman’s Library, 1932. ML edition printed from existing 146a plates (Erewhon) together with plates made from a new typesetting (Erewhon Revisited). Published spring 1933. WR 15 April 1933. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1970/71.
The addition of Erewhon Revisited was part of an effort in the early 1930s to make ML books a better value in the Depression book market. In 1932 the ML combined Maupassant’s Mademoiselle Fifi and Twelve Other Stories (8) and Love and Other Stories (72) into a single volume, The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant (243). Wilde’s Poems (19) and Fairy Tales and Poems in Prose (58) were combined as The Poems and Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (242). Wilde’s two volumes of plays, Salomé, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan (76) and An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance (77) were combined as The Plays of Oscar Wilde (241).
146c. Title page reset (1941)
EREWHON | AND | EREWHON REVISITED | BY | SAMUEL BUTLER | INTRODUCTION BY | LEWIS MUMFORD | [
Pagination and collation as 146b.
Contents as 146b except: [ii] blank; [iv] COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
Variant: Pagination as 145b. [1]16 [2–9]32 [10]8 [11]32 [12]16. Contents as 146c except: [iv] line added: COPYRIGHT, RENEWED, 1955, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
Jacket: Non-pictorial in strong purplish blue (196) on cream paper with lettering and torchbearer in reverse against solid strong purplish blue background. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal.
Front flap as 146b. (Spring 1941)
Also in the Modern Library
Butler, Way of All Flesh (1917–1970) 13
147
BERTRAND RUSSELL. SELECTED PAPERS OF BERTRAND RUSSELL. 1927–1970. (ML 137)
147a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] SELECTED PAPERS OF | BERTRAND RUSSELL | [rule] | SELECTED AND WITH A | SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY | BERTRAND RUSSELL | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xix [xx], 1–390 [391–396]. [1–13]16
[i] half title; [ii]
Variant: Pagination and collation as 147a. Contents as 147a except: [ii]
pub. note A6 ; [iv] copyright and First statements omitted; [391–395] ML list; [396] ML Giants list. (Spring 1936)
Contents: A Free Man’s Worship – Mysticism and Logic – The State – Education – Science and Art under Socialism – The World As It Could Be Made – The Aims of Education – Questions – Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted – The Chinese Character – Causes of the Present Chaos – Moral Standards and Social Well-Being – Deciding Forces in Politics – Touch and Sight: The Earth and the Heavens – Current Tendencies – Words and Meaning – Definition of Number.
Jacket A:
Text on front:
The contents of this volume were chosen by Bertrand Russell himself, and he prefaces them with a new introduction written especially for The Modern Library. Included are his two famous essays, “A Free Man’s Worship” and “Mysticism and Logic”, printed in full; significant chapters from “Education and the Good Life”; “Proposed Roads to Freedom”; Why Men Fight” [sic omission of quotation mark before title]; “The A B C of Relativity”, and much other material. (Fall 1927)
Jacket B:
Jacket C:
Front flap:
Upon the completion of his Principia Mathematica, in collaboration with Dr. Whitehead, Bertrand Russell reached the conclusion that little could be achieved by writings addressed exclusively to specialists. Abstract pursuits gave way to a quest for a better way of life, where co-operation, not competition, is the road to happiness. These essays reveal the quintessence of Bertrand Russell’s enlightened philosophy. They are for readers who are conscious of the social and political problems of our age and who seek solutions under the guidance of science and a humane philosophy. (Spring 1936)
Original ML collection. Published October 1927. WR 22 October 1927. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1970/71.
Shortly after publication of The Philosophy of William James (119) Cerf invited Horace M. Kallen to edit a similar volume devoted to Bertrand Russell (Cerf to Kallen, 23 December 1925). Kallen appears to have declined, and Manuel Komroff took on the role of editorial midwife to the collection. Russell, in return for a full royalty, was supposed to select the contents and secure permissions from the original publishers. He seems to have had little interest in the project beyond writing the introduction, however, and Komroff ended up doing most of the editorial work. When the introduction arrived Cerf wrote Komroff:
There seems to be a slight misunderstanding in the Bertrand Russell matter. He evidently believes that when he submitted his introduction to us, and vaguely O.K.’d the list of suggestions you sent him last Spring, his work would be entirely finished. I have just written him, however, that we want a very definite list from him as to what selections should be included in the volume. . . . He knows so much better than we do what really significant passages in his works are!” (Cerf to Komroff, 25 August 1926)
Komroff replied with some exasperation that Russell “is all wet.” He went on:
I took the trouble to make a catalogue of his popular books and mark to [sic] essays that were my favorites and in my mind had endured. The whole sceme [sic] was my idea in the first place and it would have been a simple matter for me to have put together a nice little volume of Russell’s Writings. But I figured it out; and there is so much work in the world that one can do that I thought if anything could be made on it the money should go to the author. But the dam [sic] hog never wrote me a line to even acknowledge the long list I had made out . . . (Komroff to Cerf, 15 September 1926).
147b. Title page reset (1940)
SELECTED | PAPERS OF | BERTRAND | RUSSELL | SELECTED AND WITH A | SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY | BERTRAND RUSSELL | [
Pagination and collation as 147a.
Contents as 147a except: [ii] blank; [iv] publication and manufacturing statements; [391–395] ML list; [396] blank. (Fall 1940)
Variant: Pagination as 147a. [1]16 [2–6]32 [7–8]16. Contents as 147b except: [iv] COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC. | COPYRIGHT, RENEWED, 1955, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.; [391–396] ML list. (Spring 1957)
Jacket A: Non-pictorial in very dark green (147) and dark brown (59) on cream paper with title in reverse on very dark green panel at upper left; other lettering in dark brown. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal.
Front flap as 147a jacket B. (Spring 1946)
Flap text reset with “Dr. Alfred North Whitehead” in place of “Dr. Whitehead”. (Spring 1953)
Jacket B: As jacket A except in orange and moderate purplish red (258) on coated white paper.
Front flap as jacket A revised text. (Fall 1963)
148
EDGAR SALTUS. THE IMPERIAL ORGY. 1927–1932. (ML 139)
148. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE IMPERIAL ORGY | [rule] | BY | EDGAR SALTUS | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | BEN RAY REDMAN | [rule] | [
Pp. [i–iv] v–xi [xii–xiv], vii [viii], [2], 1–237 [238]. [1–8]16
[i] half title; [ii]
Jacket A:
Text on front:
The story of the Russian Czars is one long carnival of cruelty and lust, of a great, overgrown, thoroughly rotten Oriental despotism gradually but certainly tottering to its fall. A whole dynasty plays its part in this book—Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, the Empress Catherine, and finally, Nicholas the Terrified. The Imperial Orgy is in effect a moving picture history of Russia with the Czars as the principle actors.
This is the first Edgar Saltus title in the Modern Library. (Fall 1927)
Jacket B:
Originally published by Boni & Liveright, 1920. ML edition (pp. [xii]–237) printed from B&L plates with illustrations omitted. Publication announced for November 1927. WR 7 January 1928. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1932.
Redman received $50 for the introduction. There was a second printing of 1,000 copies in March 1930. The Imperial Orgy was listed in 1931 as one of the ML’s worst-selling titles (“Notes on the Modern Library,” RH box 117, Publicity folder).
149
ERNEST RENAN. THE LIFE OF JESUS. 1927–1969. (ML 140)
149a. First printing (1927)
[within double rules] THE LIFE OF JESUS | [rule] | BY | ERNEST RENAN | [rule] | INTRODUCTION BY | JOHN HAYNES HOLMES | [rule] | [
Pp. [8], vii–ix [x], 15–393 [394]. [1–12]16 [13]4
[1] half title; [2]
Jacket A:
Text on front:
Ernest Renan’s whole education formed a preparation for his task of chronicling the beginnings of Christianity; all his studies were subsidiary to the historical treatment of what, in his view, was the most significant cycle of events in history. The Life of Jesus was finally written in 1863 in Palestine, in the very midst of the scenes in which the tragic story it relates had taken place. The storm that broke when the book was published has never subsided, of course, and to orthodox Catholics it is still a creation of the devil. Their outcry that no one who did not admit the divinity of Jesus was qualified to write about him found expressions in diatribes singularly comparable to the current expressions of our Fundamentalist friends. John Haynes Holmes’ introduction appears exclusively in the Modern Library edition of this book. (Fall 1927)
Jacket B:
Front flap:
Even more a work of art than a history, Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus was the first biography of the Nazarene in the modern historical and literary sense, and it is still the best. The unprecedented sensation created when the book was published in 1863 has not yet subsided. Its most vehement antagonists and its most ardent admirers are in complete accord on the immense fund of learning and the consummate artistry with which Ernest Renan re-created the humble life of Christ and the beginnings of the Christian era. (Spring 1937)
The ML used the translation by William G. Hutchinson, which was originally published in the U.S. by A. L. Burt Co. around 1898. ML edition (pp. [5–7], vii–ix, 25–393) printed from Burt plates with Hutchinson’s biographical sketch of Renan omitted, heading of p. [5] reset, and table of contents revised to include Holmes’s introduction. Published December 1927. WR 7 January 1928. First printing: Not ascertained. Discontinued 1969/70.
Two other English translations were available besides Hutchinson’s. The Life of Jesus was originally published in the U.S. by G. W. Carleton, 1874, in a translation by Charles Edwin Wilbour. A revised translation by the Biblical scholar Joseph Henry Allen, which was based on the 23rd French edition and made use of the Wilbour and Hutchinson translations, was published by Roberts Brothers in 1896 and subsequently by Little, Brown. The ML chose the less authoritative Hutchinson translation on economic grounds. The Allen translation was copyrighted and would have required royalty payments. The Wilbour translation was in the public domain, but the Roberts Brothers/Little, Brown plates were too large for the ML’s format. By buying a duplicate set of plates of the Hutchinson translation from the A. L. Burt Co. the ML was able to avoid paying royalties and the cost of resetting the text.
Klopfer noted in 1943 that “some of our plates are pretty bad. . . . The Renan, for instance . . . shouldn’t be used for anything anymore” (Klopfer to Cerf, 4 July 1943, Bennett Cerf Papers, Columbia University Library; published in Cerf and Klopfer, Dear Donald, Dear Bennett, p. 87, with Renan transcribed from Klopfer’s difficult handwriting as “Renoir”). The bad plates continued to be used into the 1960s.
Holmes, minister of the Community Church in New York City, received $50 for the introduction.
149b. Title page reset (1941)
[
Pp. [8], vii–ix [x], 15–393 [394–402]. [1–12]16 [13]8
Contents as 149b except: [2] blank; [4] INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1927, | BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.; [395–399] ML list; [400–401] ML Giants list; [402] blank. (Spring 1941)
Variant: Pagination as 149b. [1]16 [2–5]32 [6]8 [7]32 [8]16. Contents as 149b except: [4] INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1927, 1955, | BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.; [394–401] ML list; [402] blank. (Fall 1966)
Jacket: Non-pictorial jacket in grayish reddish brown (46) and dark blue (183) on cream paper with lettering in reverse on inset dark blue panel; background in grayish reddish brown with series and torchbearer in reverse below panel. Designed by Joseph Blumenthal.
Front flap as 149a jacket B. (Fall 1941)
Flap text reset with minor revisions. (Spring 1957)