LUNAR BAEDEKER AND TIME-TABLES

(Highlands, NC): (Jonathan Williams), 1958. First edition. Fine.. Rare signed limited "author's edition" of Loy's selected poems, inscribed by the poet to her daughter Joella Bayer and son-in-law, Bauhaus designer-architect Herbert Bayer. The second of only two books published during Loy's life, LUNAR BAEDEKER AND TIME-TABLES is reverently introduced by William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, and Denise Levertov. Containing "all she has written in 40 years that she found it worth her while to keep" (Williams) - including emended versions of some poems from her first book, LUNAR BAEDECKER, selections from the autobiographical "Anglo-Mongrels & the Rose," and seven later poems - Loy's biographer notes that because of Loy's "limited energies," her two daughters, Fabienne and Joella (to whom this copy is inscribed) "did most of the final reading" and approved the manuscript's changes from earlier versions (Burke).

Perennially "rediscovered," Loy's work not only as a poet, but as an artist, writer, and designer has increasingly been getting its due, and a comprehensive exhibition of her work (Mina Loy: Strangeness is Inevitable) was recently mounted at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, with an accompanying monograph from Princeton University Press.

Published by Jonathan William's great Jargon Press as Jargon #23, a rare and precious association copy of this book "of great value that had been needed and mislaid" (Levertov). 9.75'' x 5.5''. Original grey-green silk with paper spine label. 82, [2] pages. Author's Edition, one of 50 copies printed by Heritage Printers, Charlotte, NC; this copy signed by Loy and numbered 7 at colophon. Additionally inscribed by Loy on half-title page: "To Herbert & Joella from Mama Mina / 1959." From the collection of Roger Conover, Loy's literary executor and editor of THE LOST LUNAR BAEDEKER (FSG, 1996), among other works about and by Loy. Trace shelfwear to extremities. Else clean, bright, and sound.