Chicago Poems.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916. First edition. Hardcover. This is a jacketed first edition, first printing of celebrated American poet Carl Sandburg’s first published poetry collection. Per Heise, first edition of both volume and jacket are confirmed by “3/16” at the center foot of the first advertising page following the text, the 1916 publication date with no reprints noted, and by a 28-line quotation from Edgar Lee Masters on the front face of the dust jacket.
Condition approaches near fine in a very good dust jacket. The green cloth binding is square, clean, unfaded, and tight with sharp corners, bright gilt, and only a bit of wrinkling to the spine ends and trivial shelf wear to the bottom edges. The contents remain notably clean and retain a crisp feel. We find no spotting, soiling, or previous ownership marks and age-toning is modest. The dust jacket is substantially complete, with minor loss confined to the spine ends and flap fold corners and mild spine toning. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.
Not only is this “the book for which Sandburg was first appreciated” but it is also “The most frequently quoted book ever written about Chicago.” In addition to the titular poem, this collection contains such famous poems as “Fog,” “Style,” “Halstead Street Car,”, “Harrison Street Court,” and “Graceland.” Some of these poems, including “Chicago,” appeared first in Harriet Monroe’s “Poetry: A Magazine of Verse,” setting the stage for this first published collection.
America’s 20th century proletarian troubadour poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), defied easy categorization. “The poet of the American vernacular was not only a tough, gregarious reporter, but a rollicking folk musician”. He wrote children’s books, worked as a Social-Democratic Party political organizer and aide, and became both a Hollywood advisor and State Department emissary. He was likely the only Pulitzer Prize winner to have been a bona fide, incarcerated, rail-hopping hobo, and remains the only Pulitzer Prize winner to have won awards for both Poetry and History. “Sandburg spoke to and for the American Century in which he lived and did his work.”
But long before he did either, Sandburg’s itinerant youth included stints in the Army, college, a failed appointment to West Point (he failed the required mathematics and grammar tests), “chronic wanderlust,” and notional lecturing, before he rooted himself first in Wisconsin, and then in Chicago, the city he later covered as a reporter and celebrated as a poet.
As evidenced in this, his first volume of poetry, “From the beginning, Sandburg the poet gave a powerful voice to the ‘people – the mob – the crowd – the mass’… He was quickly established as the poet of the American people, pleading their cause; reciting their songs, stories, and proverbs; celebrating their spirit and their vernacular; and commemorating the watershed experiences of their shared national life.”
In retrospect, it was fitting that Lincoln and Sandburg would find one another. His epic two-part, six-volume biography of Lincoln began as commission for a juvenile biography and became instead among the most monumental and acclaimed biographies of America’s 16th President.
In addition to his Pulitzers (1919, 1940, 1951), Sandburg’s long catalogue of accolades included the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), the Robert Frost Medal (1952) for lifetime achievement in poetry, election to the American Society of Arts and Letters, a bevy of honorary doctorates, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal (1952), and an invitation to address a joint session of Congress (in 1959, for Lincoln’s 150th birthday). Sandburg’s 1967 own memorial ceremony was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
References: Heise, The Sandburg Shelf; ANB. Item #008540
Price: $950.00