Miller, Henry (Rimbaud, Arthur)

The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Arthur Rimbaud

Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1956. Second Edition (First American Edition). Hardcover. Inscribed, signed & dated at time of publication by Henry Miller to Richard Thoma. "It was just a hundred years ago last October (1954) that (Arthur) Rimbaud was born. In France the centenary was celebrated in spectacular fashion. Celebrated writers the world over were invited to make the pilgrimage to Charleville, his birthplace. The festivities were in the nature of a national event. As for Rimbaud, he probably turned over in his grave." (first paragraph, "Preface," pg. v) A study of the life & work of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), the prophetic & precocious proto-Surrealist French poet, by Henry Miller (1891-1980), the great American author-artiste whose earlier works inspired & influenced the Beat Generation. Offered here is the first American English-language edition of 1956, hardcover without dust jacket as issued, with rectangular openings cut into front cover revealing portions of (uncredited) drawn portraits of Rimbaud & Miller at front endpaper/ shorter title page. A famously striking & exemplary production of James Laughlin's classic New Directions imprint, first edition thus, first printing (though neither explicated as such on copyright page), with all points in Shifreen & Jackson, A82b, pgs. 251-252. S&J entitle this entry as the "Second Edition” & note that it was published during February of 1956. On front endpaper described above, to left of & intruding onto lower left (cheek, nose, jaw) part of Miller's portrait, Miller has hand-written, signed & dated in thick blue ink: "To Dick Thoma/ whom I am/ always/ rediscovering/ -with/ astonishment./ (signed) Henry Miller/ 3/0(?)2/(19)56." "Dick Thoma" is Richard Thoma, whose book ownership plate is affixed opposite inscription at blank inner front cover between openings (& with a very strange illustration, see image), was apparently an author who published a novel, Tragedy in Blue, in Paris during the 1930s- with the same publisher (Obelisk Press) & contemporaneous with Miller's expatriate Paris residency & publication of his great earlier works. Miller praised Thoma's novel in his critical work The Books in My Life (1952), & was altogether respectful of his colleague-friend Thoma as evidenced by this inscription. We could not obtain any biographical information on Thoma, who appears all-but-lost to history were it not for Miller. From the collection of Dr. Stanley Hurwick Levy (1926-2020), an American physician who met & conferred with Albert Einstein while a student prodigy at Princeton University during the 1940s, & was one of the most legendarily prolific & significant book collectors of them all, over many years. This writer was privileged to attend a presentation-tour by Dr. Levy at his home here in Michigan some years ago & was duly impressed with his staggeringly large collection. A superbly significant Miller collectible in its most iconically rare form, exponentially enriched by Miller's inscription (dated right about the time of first publication per above) to a most-respected (albeit elusive) fellow author, with doubly distinguished provenance. In relatively quite fine condition with mild rubbing, faint scratching to front, back covers & spine; a touch of wear & a few tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; light rubbing, browning to edges of text block esp. upper edge. Interior fine-to-very-fine with mild browning to paste-downs, endpapers & page leaves; Thoma's book plate at inner front cover noted above; five lines of cursive scholarly marginalia, presumably in Thoma's hand, in pencil at upper area of blank rear paste-down. The latter two points we consider to be yet-further enrichments of this exceptionally important volume. Fine. [Item #6293]

Price: $400.00