IN THE CLEARING

NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1952. 1st Edition. Hardcover. VG-/VG-. Ownership copy of Frost friend and artist Earl Hubbard (1924-2003) and his wife Barbara with their names, dated March 1962, Lakeville (CT) in Hubbard's hand in the upper right corner of the ffe. Affixed to the ffe is "The Prophets Really Prophecy as Mystics The Commentators Merely Statistics", Robert Frost's personal version of his 1962 Christmas card. Affixed to the rear pastedown is a facsimile of Frost's holograph of a his poem which begins "In winter in the woods alone/Against the trees I go..." Frost had an offset reproduction of this printed at Amherst in January 1962, originally in an edition of 25 copies, to distribute to undergraduates and friends, on the occasion of a movie made at Amherst College. Later, many more copies were printed. We could locate only two institutions - Amherst College and Dartmouth College - with copies of the facsmile; Dartmouth has 1962 correspondence between Frost and Earl and Barbara Hubbard, this copy's owners, in its collection. The book has Hubbard's underlining scattered throughout in fine-point black ink, and on page 26 and page 38 he has neatly penned dictionary definitions of "avatar" and "pantheism", respectively, that are used by Frost on those pages. The bottom right corner of the dustjacket panel is stained, which has traversed to the cloth underneath, otherwise the book is unaffected. The dustjacket is moderately worn at edges and dustjacket folds.