Various (Davies, Ada; Ginsberg, Allen; Jacoby, Grover; Rosalie S.; Kellogg, Hanson; Moore, Rosalie; O’Brien, Keran; Stevenson, Candance T.)

Variegation: A Free Verse Quarterly (Winter 1956)

Los Angeles, CA: Variegation Publishing Company, 1956. First Printing. Stapled Wrappers. (Morgan C44, pg. 230). “Through all the hours of the sunlight / I am indoors, / employed to instruct the electric calculator / with an indifferent mind. / Clerks live in the abstract physical world, / observing procedure, / recording correspondence, registering facts / in which phantoms / even are represented, / for what they are. / All these black minutiae / delineated graphwise decline to prophesy / the inevitable zero. / But I’m not paid to analyse beyond the / present number” (“A Sullen Interpolation” by Allen Ginsberg, pg. 13). This one is a collector’s delight: a pre-HOWL appearance by Allen Ginsberg! It comes in a magazine titled “Variegation: A Free Verse Quarterly” edited by one Grover Jacoby, who founded the magazine in Los Angeles, California back in 1946. Equally interesting is the fact that Variegation had a sister magazine, titled “Recurrence: A Quarterly of Rhyme,” which did the opposite—nesting within its wrappers exclusively work composed in established metrical verse forms. Ginsberg enthusiasts and scholars will recognize the special significance of Allen’s appearance in Variegation; for it not only precedes the appearance of HOWL, but prints pre-HOWL poems in a magazine exclusively dedicated to Free Verse—something Allen struggled intensely with composing for many years beforehand. In a final flourish of collectability-enhancing allure, the contributors page features a most charming error: “A long poem by Arnold Ginsberg entitled HOWL is at present scheduled for publication by City Lights.” Magazine in stapled wrappers: the first and only printing of the Winter 1956 issue of Jacoby’s “Variegation.” In fine condition with only moderate shelf-wear & a few exhibits of tiny, exceedingly light bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; age-typical toning, yellowing & a few isolated exhibits of spotting/browning, modest rubbing & horizontal creasing to same; some spotting to text block; hushed pronouncements of rusting, bleeding to staples, & accompanying slight flecks of bleeding at/near/orbiting same; else pristine. Fine. [Item #5342]

Price: $75.00 save 20% $60.00