[Item #2976] Myths & Texts. Gary Snyder.
Myths & Texts
Myths & Texts

Myths & Texts

New York, NY: Totem Press / Corinth Books, 1960 (1965). First Edition, Third Printing. Stapled Wrappers. Signed by Gary Snyder. From the Collection of Ken Mikolowski, Co-Founder of Detroit's Visionary Alternative Press. First released in 1960, Gary Snyder's "Myths & Texts" was the followup to his celebrated "Riprap," first published by Cid Corman's Origin Press in Japan in 1959. Ted Wilentz, owner of the famed 8th Street Bookshop in New York City and publisher of Corinth Books, took a suggestion from Allen Ginsberg that he begin issuing titles together with Amiri Baraka, then LeRoi Jones. The deal Wilentz cut with Jones was that Jones could "recommend" titles but they had to be approved by Wilentz/Corinth before Corinth put up the funding for the book's publication. One of these suggestions was Gary Snyder's "Myths and Texts." Unlike Snyder's earlier publications, "Myths & Texts" attempts to employ a more experimental poetics than the surveying nature-narratives of "Riprap" and "Cold Mountain Poems." This copy is from the library of Ken & Ann Mikolowski, co-founders of Detroit's visionary "Alternative Press," close friends and publishers of Snyder. Although this book was signed to Ken Mikolowski, personally, Snyder did not include Mikolowski"s name in the inscription--as they had only just met, and it would be another three years until Ken & Ann launched the Alternative Press. This is a First Edition, Third Printing, as defined by all points in Katherine McNeil's "Gary Snyder: A Bibliography," issued by the venerable Phoenix Book Shop. Myths & Texts went into its third printing in 1965, and Gary Snyder's contemporary signature in bold, calligraphic blue ink, reads: "Gary Snyder / 18 XI 1966." Book in fine condition with only minor rubbing to front, back covers; slight foxing, soiling along spine-edge of front cover and minutely at rightmost fine-edge; tiny drop coffee stain at bottom left-hand corner of same, likely inflicted by Mikolowski during a reading session; thin, sparse vertical creases running through back cover; minute soiling to leftmost fine-edge of same. Fine. [Item #2976]

Price: $100.00

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