Description: To be published by Alfred A. Knopf (New York 2015), this is the UNCORRECTED PROOF in plain green wrappers, not the hardcover edition. A proof of the jacket front in bound in behind the front cover. First Edition stated. Edited by Christopher Carduff, with a ten-page introduction by Brad Leithauser, the book includes 129 poems selected from all eight of Updike's books of poetry. 287 pp. Brand new. Unread. Proofs and advance reading copies are considered the 'true' first edition by many collectors. Since they are produced in relatively small quantities, they are highly desirable. They are usually printed on better paper than ordinary paperback editions. From the jacket flap of the hardcover edition: Though John Updike is widely known as one of America's greatest writers of prose, both his first book and his last were poetry collections, and in the 50 years between he published six other volumes of verse. Christopher Carduff has selected the best from Updike's lifework in poetry: 129 witty and intimate poems that, when read together in the order of their composition, take on the quality of an unfolding verse-diary. Among these poems are precocious undergraduate efforts (including the previously unpublished "Coming into New York"), frequently anthologized midcareer classics ("Seagulls," "Seven Stanzas at Easter," "Dog's Death"), and dozens of later works in a form that Updike made his own, the blank-verse sonnet. The poems range from metaphysical epigrams and devotional poems to lyrical odes to rot, growth, and healing; from meditations on Roman portrait busts and the fleshy canvases of Lucian Freud to observations on sash cords, postage stamps, and hand tools; from several brief episodes in family history to a pair of long autobiographical poems, the antic and eclectic "Midpoint," written at age 35, and the elegiac masterpiece "Endpoint," completed just before his death at 76. The variety of the work is astonishing, the craftsmanship always of the highest caliber. Art, science, popular culture, foreign travel, erotic love, the beauty of the man-made and the God-given worlds-these recurring topics provided Updike ever-surprising occasions for wonder and matchless verbal invention. His Selected Poems is, as Brad Leithauser writes in his introduction, a celebration of American life in the second half of the 20th century: "No other writer of his time captured so much of this passing pageant. And that he did so with brio and delight and nimbleness is another reason to celebrate our noble celebrant."
Price: 60 USD
Location: New York, New York
End Time: 2024-11-07T05:22:49.000Z
Shipping Cost: 5 USD
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Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Book Title: SELECTED POEMS
Author: John Updike
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Language: English
Signed: No
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Special Attributes: 1st Edition
Format: Uncorrected proof
Features: 1st Edition, Uncorrected Proof
