Fatal Interview: Sonnets

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

SIGNED | First Edition | Harper and Brothers Publishers | 1931

Edna St Vincent Millay, who went by Vincent throughout her life, was a fascinating woman living right at the turn of the nineteenth century. Raised, along with her two sisters, by her single mother, Vincent was encouraged to be self-aware, highly creative, and ambitious.

Her writing career started at a young age, winning a poetry prize at 14 and published by 15. By 21 she was attending Vassar College on a full scholarship. School was difficult for Millay, who was used to a high degree of independence that the institution didn’t offer. She was a juxtaposition of the jazz age woman–often smoking, gambling, drinking, and flirting with both men and women; while also maintaining a strict, self-imposed writing schedule that won her both high honors in the literary circles and kept her mother and sisters out of poverty.

After her graduation, Vincent moved to Greenwich Village–the beating heart of the bohemian jazz age. Often starring in theater productions and reading tours, Vincent was both widely popular and highly controversial. Her poetry over the years dealt with such taboo themes as feminism, divorce, war, and poverty. And yet, her vivacity and intelligence inevitably won people over.

In 1923, at the age of 31, Vincent won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver.” Though the Pulitzer Prizes had been around for six years, this was only the second year the Poetry Award had been established.

During the next few years Vincent married Eugen Jan Boissevain and moved into her own home, Steepletop, near Austerlitz, New York. Once a blueberry farm, it became Vincent’s writing and entertaining retreat. After her death, her sister, Norma helped establish Steepletop as a writer’s colony, attended by such famous poets as Mary Oliver. After Norma’s passing, a land sale helped preserve Steepletop as a museum.

Fatal Interview is Vincent’s seventh book of poetry. Published in 1931 when Vincent was 39 years old, the sonnets mourn a failed love affair. Though devotedly married and semi-retired at Steepletop, Vincent still led a very unconventional and bohemian life that included a number of lovers, a possible gambling problem, and a drug addiction from a traumatic car crash years before.

Reading Vincent’s poetry is to take a peek into that life and feel, for just a moment, like you too are a young jazz age debutante, a vibrant performer, a social activist, an eclectic poet all rolled into one.

Little Women

by Louisa May Alcott

First Thus | The John C. Winston Company | 1926

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A classic of American children’s literature, Little Women is a semi-autobiographical novel by Lousia May Alcott that follows the coming-of-age adventures of the four March sisters during the Civil War. Originally published in two volumes by Roberts Brothers in 1868 and 1869, it was later combined into a single, two-part novel in 1880.

This particular edition, published in 1926 by The John C. Winston Company, features watercolor illustrations by Clara Miller Burd. Trained in both New York and Paris, Burd worked as a stained glass designer for J&R Lamb Studios; the Church Glass and Decorating Company; and, notably, the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. Her glasswork can be seen in churches and cemeteries across New York and the Midwest.

As already noted, Burd also illustrated numerous books and magazines throughout her artistic career. Included in her list of work are all three books in the “Little Women Series”–Little Women, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys. This is great news for collector’s who would like to immerse themselves in the vibrant world of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy as seen through Burd’s imaginative eyes.

The Metamorphosis

by Franz Kafka and Peter Kuper

SIGNED | Crown Publishers | 2003

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This graphic novel version of the classic horror novella by Franz Kafka is a must for collectors. Peter Kuper, of Spy vs Spy and Mad Magazine fame, has a unique, bold art style that brings Kafka’s story into bold reality.

Rendered primarily in black and white, with bright red accents, we see the story of Gregor Samsa unfold page by page. And like many illustrators before him, Kuper depicts the insect as a cockroach, though he departs by giving it a human-esque face, reminding us that there is a man locked inside the insect and showcasing Kafka’s existential absurdism.

This particular edition is signed by the author via a hand-drawn illustration of Gregor, rendered in sharpie, on the first free endpage.

You’re in Love, Charlie Brown

by Charles M. Schultz

First Edition | The World Publishing Company | 1968

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This book is the “novelization” of the prime-time animated TV special, “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” that aired on June 16th, 1967. Based on the Peanuts comic strip that ran from 1950-2000 by Charles M. Schultz.

Our beloved anti-hero Charlie Brown is having an existential crisis over his crush on “the pretty little red-haired girl.” He wants to meet her, be friends, maybe have lunch together. But as he fumbles through the last couple days of school, his mind on impressing his classmate, we (as the audience) quickly see that Charlie is at no loss for friends.

Linus walks to school with Charlie as well as sits with him at lunch, though Charlie’s too busy fretting to notice. Peppermint Patty calls him up (her first appearance in the franchise) to invite him to play baseball over the summer. She even affectionately calls him “Chuck” and offers to help him try and meet the Little Red-Haired Girl.

Lucy is the most antagonistic, teasing him about his crush, but that has more to do with her own melodramatic, soap-opera adjacent fantasies of a life with Schroeder, than anything to do with Charlie himself. And it is also the kind of underlyingly fond 8-year-old teasing that comes from being close friends and neighbors.

The point is that Charlie does have a group of friends. He is not alone. The Little Red-Haired Girl, though obviously a real person in the Charlie Brown universe, is never shown in-person or referred to by her given name. And that’s because she’s actually a metaphor. A projection of Charlie’s own insecurities about his place in his community and how he will fit, now that summer is arriving and school will be out.

But as we have already seen, that problem is solved by Peppermint Patty’s arrival and invitation to play baseball. And he already had his sister Sally, his dog Snoopy, and his best friend Linus–they would not have disappeared over the summer break.

What Charlie really needed to find was his own confidence. So when a note signed “The Little Red-Haired Girl” mysteriously finds its way into his hand as the final busses depart the schoolyard, Charlie is elated. He was noticed! Even if, I suspect, it was by Linus or Lucy or Peppermint Patty slipping him the note. It doesn’t matter, the result is the same, Charlie runs home feeling on top of the world. And we do too, because *we* love you, Charlie Brown.

If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

First Edition | The Dial Press | 1974

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James Baldwin’s fifth novel is, in many ways, emblematic of his work. A love story set amidst the racial injustices of midcentury America, If Beale Street Could Talk irrevocably intertwines suffering and passion, family and society, and how our human bonds shape our lives.

This is the main thesis of much of Baldwin’s oeuvre. The main characters, Tish and Fonny, are engaged, pregnant, and trying their best to get by. But life, in the form of a false criminal accusation, derails their plans. Social and economic prejudices shape the accusation leading to Fonny’s arrest.

Tish, the narrator (and Baldwin’s only female protagonist), struggles not only with Fonny’s arrest and all that entails, but with her pre-marital pregnancy. Religion, family, and social expectations both weaken and strengthen her familial bonds with both her and Fonny’s parents. Tish’s mother and Fonny’s father both go on journeys to try and save their children. In the end, Fonny is released from prison and Tish has their child, but the ending is neither a happy nor a sad one. Instead it is ambivalent and unsettled–a mirror of the world they live in.

And as much as it is a romantic love story, If Beale Street Could Talk is also a familial love story. Extreme sacrifices are made for the love of Tish and Fonny. Their parents, with their own baggage and beliefs, clearly love their children and do their best to help them. The unity between all of them–symbolized by Tish and Fonny’s unborn child–tethers our characters together and ultimately allows them to get through their individual and combined struggles.

In this way it is a very traditional love story. Its unconventionality lies in the social, economic, and racial commentary Baldwin so deftly weaves around his storytelling. Love, and life, cannot be separated from these outside sources. And it is this love that ultimately saves our characters from the psychological terrors of life, when others do not, or cannot, survive. Not exactly a high note to end on, but it is one of hope–that all the love in our own life, will also see us through.

A Christmas Book: An Anthology for Moderns

by D. B. Wyndham Lewis and G. C. Heseltine

First Edition | J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. | 1928

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Born Llewellyn Bevan Wyndham Lewis (1891-1969) but better known as Dominic, Wyndham Lewis originally intended to pursue a legal career. But WWI had other ideas. After his service with the Welch Regiment, Wyndham-Lewis turned instead to journalism, pursuing a career at the Daily Express. His work at the newspaper was primarily as a humorist. And under the pen name Beachcomber he wrote the “By the Way” column–which launched his literary career. Beachcomber was a pen name adopted from the column’s previous contributor and later passed on to his own successor, J. B. Morton.

During the following years Wyndham-Lewis converted to Catholicism (changing his first name to Dominic, which all of his successive work is known by), took up the biography of French nobles, and produced a number of historical nonfiction.

But Wyndham-Lewis is perhaps best known for being an editor and satirist. In fact, his comic sensibilities are on full display in The Stuffed Owl, an anthology of “bad verse” by well-known poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, William Wordsworth, and many others.

It is this type of satirical work that is on full display in A Christmas Book: An Anthology for Moderns. In it, Wyndham Lewis maligns the modern world. It’s all a very tongue-in-cheek “kids these days” while also very seriously reminding his readers that not every poem, song, ballad, and recipe made it to the modern celebration of the holiday. The holiday traditions that we know and love–the Christmas stories that everyone knows and that get reprinted hundreds of times every year–are just the lucky few that were popular enough to make it through.

In fact, the preface very clearly states that “The following essentials to any Christmas Anthology will be found nowhere in this Anthology: extracts from Dickens, Pepys (with one exception), and (with one exception) Washington Irving, and reference (with one exception) to Father Christmas; also fake-Gothic carols (including Good King Wenceslas), robins, property Yule-logs, synthetic snow, redfaced jovial Squires, wigs by Clarkson, Ye Olde Englysshe Yuletyde Cheere (18—), and all manifestations of the coloured Christmas Supplement.”

And like any good satirist, Wyndham Lewis pretends to be a scrooge about who and what is included in his anthology…but also allows one or two exceptions. Because they’re classics and nostalgic and what’s the holiday season without a bit of fun?

This is a great book for any ultra-modern readers who have an interest in how the celebration of Christmas has evolved over the years–or who’d just like to spend a very merry afternoon reading holiday stories that you’ve likely never heard before. So pull up a chair, grab a hot beverage, and start your own modern reading tradition this Christmas.

Feasts for All Seasons

by Roy Andries de Groot

SIGNED by illustrator! | First Edition | Alfred A. Knopf | 1966

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It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the US and what better way to celebrate than with a really huge meal cooked for your family and friends! And what better way to do that than with Roy Andries de Groot’s seasonally-focused cookbook, A Feast for All Seasons.

Broken into four gastronomic seasons: The Spring, Summer Harvest, Fall Holiday Season, and Winter Dog Days, this book includes numerous recipes built around the peak season for each ingredient and celebrating a wide variety of holidays stemming from many diverse cultures.

But for the Fall Holiday Season, which includes the months of October, November, and December, de Groot focuses mainly on the preparation of meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lists of seasonal foods–wild game, fish, root vegetables, squashes, nuts, and fruits–are included alongside a lengthy discussion of hot beverages, a quick aside on kumquats, and a meditation on honey.

Holidays included in the season:

October 10th – the Double Ten holiday, celebrating the China’s freedom from the Manchu Dynasty in 1910
October 29th – The Foundation of the Republic Day, celebrated in Turkey
October 31st – Halloween!
November 1st – The Independence Day of Algeria
Late November – Thanksgiving
November 30th – St Andrew’s Day, a Scottish holiday
December 13th – St Lucia’s Day, celebrated in Sweden
December 24th – Christmas Eve
December 31st – New Year’s Eve celebrated in German style

And yet, despite the traditional nature of all holiday celebrations, de Groot proclaims that “We refuse to be hidebound traditionalists about our Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts” and suggests suckling pig, venison, or turkey for either meal. He urges you to be creative, to break away from the same old standard fare and to try the vast gastromic delights of autumn.

Now onto the feast! The remaining 13 pages of the chapter are recipes for cream of pumpkin soup, roast turkey with fruit and chestnut stuffing, apples molded in a scarlet overcoat, yams with apricots and sunflower seeds, Brillat-Savarin’s spinach, and a demitasse selection of drinks. When to start preparation of each dish, ideas for finger-foods and relishes, best ways to serve each item, and last minute garnishes are all included in de Groots recipes.

But perhaps the most useful information de Groot includes in all his timetables on when and how to prepare each portion of each dish, is actually included in the Acknowledgements at the front of the cookbook, “This book began as an idea within our family. It became the shared project of many of our friends.” That is the heart of any feast–and it is reflected in the language used throughout the book. “We” cooked the food. De Groot, his family and friends, you the reader, your family and friends, and everyone else who ever tested out one of these recipes. Feasts are communal and–over a lovingly prepared meal–we give thanks that we’re all together. Which when it’s all boiled down, is the heart of all holidays.

P.S. – This particular edition of Feasts for All Seasons is inscribed by the illustrator, Tom Funk “My Best Wishes at Christmas” and dated 1966. And since the recipient is unknown, we can imagine that he’s reaching through time and wishing us all a happy holiday season.

Holy Soul Jelly Roll: Poems and Songs, 1949-1993

by Allen Ginsberg

SIGNED | Rhino Records | 1994

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Released on September 6th 1994, Holy Soul Jelly Roll is a 4-disc box set of Allen Ginsberg’s (1926-1997) spoken poetry, including a 64-page booklet of notes, read by the author at various events over the years.

I sat down with the five hour long tracklist and spent a really chill afternoon listening. I’ve listened to many audiobooks in my day, but never one of poetry and it made for a really immersive experience. There’s light jazz playing in the background, faint static behind the tracks, and Ginsberg’s soft-spoken voice reading. Intermittently, he sings–the very first track “Walking at Night in Key West” is set to the tune of “The Saints Come Marching Home”–or gives a little introduction to his poetry, imbuing the whole album with a feeling like you’re sitting there with him. We’re at an open mic, it’s vaguely 1960-something, and Allen Ginsberg has just started reading to a hushed crowd.

And then there’s something to be said for the album to be on CDs. It’s very mid-90s (vintage now) and tangible in a way that digital media is not. There’s ritual to listening: first of all, you will need a CD-player, then gently remove the CDs from their cases, place them in the play, and sit down to listen. Oh, I suppose you could get a portable CD player and listen while out and about. But something about Ginsberg’s calm reciting lends itself to remaining still and letting the words wash over you.

To make this particular album more substantial, it has been signed by Ginsberg on the inside of the box. On November 13th 1994 he held this box and signed it for a fan. They’d probably just bought it and then went home to listen, forever linking mid-autumn with the sound of Ginsberg’s voice. It’s kinda lovely, to think you can extend that experience nearly twenty years later.

Ginsberg died a few short years after the release of this album. He was a core member of the Beat Generation and a lasting voice in counterculture America. He once said, in a Face to Face interview with the BBC, that “a poem is like a radio that can broadcast continually, for thousands of years,” and though he may be gone, we are still here and we are still listening.

The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King

by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)

Book Club Edition | New American Library | 1985

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Many authors write under pen names, for various reasons, but none may be as famously known as Richard Bachman–the king of horror himself, Stephen King.

Though he’d been writing professionally since 1967, King’s big break came with the publication of his first novel, Carrie, in 1974. It’s important to note the original hardcover edition of Carrie sold alright, but it was the paperback version, published in 1975, that eventually became the bestseller–with sales bolstered by the film adaptation in 1976.

The success of Carrie established King as a new voice in horror fiction and allowed him to become a full time author. With nothing to impede him, King began to write prolifically, writing the drafts for his next two novels–Salem’s Lot and The Shining–within six months.

Afraid to oversaturate the market with a single author, publishing houses only released one novel of an author’s per year. King, however, was already writing at a breakneck speed and curious if his success was due to skill or luck, decided to publish his fourth novel, Rage, under a pseudonym.

The first four Bachman novels were originally released in paperback and with little fanfare, but over time fans quickly noticed many similarities between the authors’ writing. Some even accused Bachman of copying King’s style. It wasn’t until the release of Thinner (1984), the first hardcover Bachman novel, that the secret was revealed.

Stephen P. Brown, a bookstore clerk and horror fiction aficionado, received an advanced reading copy of the novel and, noting the similarities in the style of both authors, became convinced they were one and the same man. In a real-time act of bibliography, he tracked down copyright documentation that proved King was Bachman. And so, on February 9, 1985, Richard Bachman died suddenly of “cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia.”

After the loss of Bachman’s anonymity, Thinner sales skyrocketed. In order to introduce King’s existing fanbase to his work under his penname, the first four Bachman books, Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), and The Running Man (1982), were collected into a hardcover edition along with an introduction by King called, “Why I Was Bachman.”

And Bachman King remains, even to this day, as two more books have since been published under the penname–The Regulators (1996) and Blaze (2007). Affectionately called “trunk books” they claim to be found by the Bachman widow, Claudia, in a trunk or by King himself, in an attic among papers pre-dating Carrie.

And so the story of Richard Bachman, worthy of its own twisting Stephen King novel, continues on, even after death.

The Compleat Practical Joker

by H. Allen Smith and illustrated by Charles Addams

First Edition | Double Day & Company, Inc. | 1953

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This post is only incidentally about the book The Compleat Practical Joker or its author, H. Allen Smith. Rather it’s about Charles Addams (1912-1988), who illustrated the dustjacket.

Addams, as you may well know, was a cartoonist most famous for his Addams Family series about a spooky gothic family. But what isn’t as well known is that the members of the Addams Family–Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Grandmama, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Thing, and Cousin Itt–all existed as separate characters long before The Addams Family television show aired in 1964.

In fact, the first published Addams Family cartoon was in The New Yorker in 1938. It’s a one-panel gag that features a then-unnamed Morticia and a proto-Lurch–who looks more like Boris Karloff than Frankenstein’s monster. Morticia is the earliest of the Addams Family characters to be introduced, later followed by Gomez, the children, and Fester. In 1946, we see these core members gathered together, possibly for the first time, celebrating the holidays by scalding Christmas carolers with boiling oil.

Which is why it’s not very unusual to see Uncle Fester peeking around the corner of The Compleat Practical Joker’s (1958) dustjacket, even though it is almost a decade before the airing of the television show. Addams often reused his favorite characters and Fester, being the most like Charles Addams himself, is the perfect character to illustrate a book on practical jokes. After all, Addams was a satirist, cartoonist, and humorist. Fester lights up the topsy-turvy room.

The Addams Family television show only lasted two seasons, but Charles’ unique gothic sensibility has stood the test of time–with the 90s movies, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the modern Netflix series, and even a musical–helping to ensure that Charles Addams’ art and legacy haunts us to this day.

They’re creepy and they’re kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They’re all together ooky
The Addams family

“The Addams Family Theme”
by Andrew Gold