DRAFTS AND FRAGMENTS OF CANTOS CX-CXVII

First UK edition, first printing. Original black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm (a touch of bowing to boards), the contents clean throughout. Light spotting to fore- and upper edges. In the dustwrapper, nicked to the upper spine tip, the spine a touch toned and a little rubbed to folds; otherwise clean and bright. Not price-clipped (20s / £1.00 net to the front flap).

Returning to Italy in 1958 following his thirteen year confinement at St Elizabeth's asylum in Washington, Pound, now in his seventies, clearly felt himself unable to realise whatever conclusion he might have envisaged for the monumental series of Cantos he had been engaged with for over forty years. These final Cantos are at once a confession of failure and, paradoxically, as George Kearns has it, "a bravura gesture of technique and spirit" in the face of such disappointment. "There is at last a limpidity in these pages; even where we find references we cannot identify and suspect hidden resonances, we are guided adequately by the verse." Published 23 February 1970, 2000 copies were printed. (George Kearns, 'Ezra Pound: The Cantos', Cambridge: 1989; Gallup A91b.).