ELIOT, T.S.
The Waste Land.
New York: Boni and Liveright , 1922.
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+$450
Rare First Edition of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land
First edition of one of the most influential works of the 20th century, one of 1000 copies, mixed state (with "mountain" spelled without "a" in line 339 on page 41 and the "a" dropped from water on page 22). Octavo, bound in full contemporary leather with gilt titles to the front panel, top edge gilt. Possibly a gift binding for presentation. In good condition with losses to the spine and hinges.
The Waste Land expresses with great power the disillusionment and disgust of the period after World War I. In a series of fragmentary vignettes, loosely linked by the legend of the search for the Grail, it portrays a sterile world of panicky fears and barren lusts, and of human beings waiting for some sign or promise of redemption. The depiction of spiritual emptiness in the secularized city--the decay of urbs aeterna (the "eternal city")--is not a simple contrast of the heroic past with the degraded present; it is rather a timeless, simultaneous awareness of moral grandeur and moral evil. The poem initially met with controversy as its complex and erudite style was alternately denounced for its obscurity and praised for its modernism.
The Waste Land.
$4,500.00
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