CAVAFY, C. P.

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The Poems. First edition of the first translation of Cavafy's collected poems into English. Almost unknown during his lifetime, Cavafy lived in Alexandria where he met and impressed E. M. Forster, who described "a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe" (Pharos and Pharillon, p. 91). John Mavrogordato (1882-1970), an Oxford professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek, notes that his translation "was originally made in 1937, at the request of some of Cavafy's English friends, from the complete edition published in Alexandria in 1935; but it remained unpublished" (p. 11). Translations by George Valassopoulo of several, individual poems had appeared in various publications prior to this edition.

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