Kalstone, David (Bishop, Elizabeth; Hemenway, Robert; Lowell, Robert; Merrill, James; Moore, Marianne)

Becoming a Poet: Elizabeth Bishop with Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell

New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989. First Edition, First Printing. “Becoming a Poet is the first full-scale critical-biographical consideration of a writer who is coming more and more to be seen as a major mid-century American figure. Though much admired and much honored in her lifetime, Elizabeth Bishop has emerged since her death in 1979 as a dominant presence in modern letters – a meticulous craftsman, a strikingly independent thinker, a classic poet of enduring significance. Bishop was also an inspired letter writer, and David Kalstone’s book draws extensively on her voluminous correspondence with the two most important literary influences of her working life: Marianne Moore, the great modernist poet and editor who served as Bishop’s mentor; and her follow New Englander Robert Lowell, her closest literary peer.” (From front flap) This volume examines the life and work of Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet & short story writer, among the most popular & beloved in the twentieth-century American canon. It was written by David Kalstone, an acclaimed literary critic and longtime professor of English at Rutgers University, but he died from AIDS before it was completed. It was finished by Robert Hemenway, an academic who served as chancellor of the University of Kansas and the University of Kentucky. The book is broken into two parts: the first examining Bishop’s relationship with Moore, the second with Lowell. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill (1926-1995) provides an afterword. From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), poet, editor, and professor in the University of Michigan Department of English Language and Literature. Hardcover in unclipped dustjacket. First Edition, First Printing as explicated at copyright page. Book in Very Fine condition with no noticeable defect to covers or spine; some light scratching and smudging to top of textblock. Interior Very Fine and appears substantially mint. Dustjacket Fine-Very Fine with light scratching and rubbing to front, back covers & spine; light creasing and some tiny bumps to edges & corners of same; some age-toning to recto. Very Fine / Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8415]

Price: $40.00