CUMMINGS, E. E.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Christmas Tree. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the first blank, "From E. E. C. for Aunt Jennie with a Merry Christmas, '28". The book was later acquired by Cummings's friend and French translator, David Jonathan Grossman, and has his shelf label on the glassine.Grossman (1922-1990) first met Cummings whilst attending Peter Monro Jack's course at Columbia night school in 1941-42. After serving in the Second World War, Grossman attended Harvard in 1946 and began writing a thesis on Cummings, which he never finished. According to Grossman this was the start of their correspondence proper. In 1947 he moved to Paris but maintained the friendship; throughout the following years he wrote to or visited Cummings in the US. By 1960 he had published his first translation, and in 1980 he was awarded the Prix Halperine-Kaminsky for his Cummings translations.This is the first separate printing of "Little Tree", which was initially published in XLI (1925). A folio leaf printing the poem, extracted from the 1960 Golden Eagle Press edition of Christmas Tree, is loosely inserted.

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