The Bridge; A Poem
New York: Horace Liveright, 1930. First American edition. 8vo, 82pp; blue cloth. a near fine copy, with the gilt stamping unusually bright, in a lightly chipped dust jacket with two notable tears and several old tape repairs to the underside; publisher's Spring 1930 list loosely inserted. Item #207673
This publication was done with some reluctance by Horace Liveright, whose finances were always precarious and who had lost money on Crane's first book, White Buildings (1926). But the poet had influential friends with the publisher's ear, including Eugene O'Neill and Waldo Frank, both prolific members of Liveright's stable of authors, as well as the financier Otto Kahn, who had helped bankroll the Paris edition by Black Sun Press (and to whom Crane dedicated the poem). They convinced Liveright go ahead with The Bridge, one of the most important books of American poetry of the twentieth century. Copies in dust jacket have become exceptionally uncommon. Schwartz & Schweik A3.
Price: $4,500.00