[Item #5250] Ultimatum. Fernando Pessoa, Alvaro de Campos.
Ultimatum
Ultimatum

Ultimatum

Nice, France: Editions Unes, 1993. First French Edition Thus. Softcover. First printed over 100 years ago, Fernando Pessoa's (1888-1935) “Ultimatum” was published by a group of Portuguese Futurists in 1917. As the celebrated poet wrote in a short piece of prose (which one can find on the “arquivopessoa.net” website), “Through some inexplicable stroke of luck, [Ultimatum] passed the press-censors, [but] the luck ceased when someone called the attention of the authorities to it, after [which] the review was on the booksellers’ windows...immediately seized by the police, and proceedings instituted against all the authors collaborating….My reason for translating the ‘Ultimatum’ is that it is quite the cleverest piece of literature called into being by the Great War. We may stare at its theories as unspeakably eccentric, we may disagree with the excessive violence of the introductory invective, but no one, I believe, can but confess that the satiric part is magnificent in its studied preciseness of application, and that the theoretic part, whatever we think of the value of the theories, has at least the rare merits of originality and freshness.” While that piece of explanatory, historical backdrop-establishing prose is all well and good, the bibliographical facts regarding this travel-sized-&-truly cosmopolitan “relic from resistances past” remain evasive. [ISBN: 2-87704-005-4]. Softcover in stiff wrappers: French-language First Edition Thus, published in Cognac, France by Editions Unes in May, 1993. From the collection of Allen Tobias, formerly the assistant of Allen Ginsberg, curator, critical writer, scholar, our good friend & esteemed colleague at the European Beat Studies Network (ebsn.eu). In very fine condition with only minute shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers, otherwise pristine. Very Fine. [Item #5250]

Price: $50.00