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Ezra Pound

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Ezra Pound

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Auction Date:2018 Dec 05 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Three typed letters from Ezra Pound, two signed in pencil, “E. P.,” four total pages, each 8.75 x 11.25, personal letterhead (two bearing a Cubist self portrait), dated between January and April 1933. The letters are addressed to Douglas Morse Howell, a renowned papermaker and the friend and agent of Pound. The earliest letter, unsigned, written on January 6, in full (spelling and grammar retained): “I am sending you a very important book ‘Mercanti di Cannoni’ // not only important/ Best reportage since Albert Londres, but a ‘seller.’ man not only KNOWS but understands. I have a sort of option, but no time is to be lost as various people are already offering to translate it. It ran as a series of articles in Las Stampa. You can try my pubrs/ Farrar and Rinehart/ or whoever you like. I will oversee the translating// same translator as for the Cocteau.but as that is from french/ probably no need to say who is to translate… Mystere Loic Am also sending the Cocteau. Not so much hurry about that. Still as it is translated and ready, some pubr/ might have the intelligence to issue it. Not that one expects intelligence from pubrs/ The Mercanti is the main item/ and the bread winner. Ought to pay an advance/ and pay for the translation and allow a small royalty to author as well.”

The second letter, on March 13, in full: “It may be the moment to put me over as a PAID (by which I mean PAID) writer on economics. There seems no reasonable doubt that I am lecturing next week at the Universita Commericale (Milano). Everything the Roosevelt, Woodin, Aldrich have proposed is accordin to schedule I wrote out last month in the Jeff/Mussolini, or last summer in the A.B. C. also vide my interviews with Chi. Trib. back as far as 1931. Sometime they will see that Lipmann is both a fool and a shit/ mere paid yawper for exploded rackets. They are probably still down on their bellies before him (once a man is highly paid fahrter on a big paper it takes U.S. a long time to find him out….) but still You may as well look FORWARD and consider that I may sometime come to the bat. Frankie is shaping better that one wd. have expected. Or else Woodin or someone knows something and has told him. Do you hear anything about Hoover’s profits while in office??? I have no data, and one shd. merely enquire what; if anything is known. Melon to be extradited, or is he safe? Have you seen Rodman of Common Sense.? They cant pay enough for the Jeff/Muss/ but you might see about ABC. with them. Miss Rice HAD the mss. and now Curtis Brown has the proofs of the edtn. they placed in Eng. but you cd. ring in for part com/ at least so I suppose. Or place new orders on strength of the brit. edtn. I mean orders for new articles. England is evidently waking up. seem to be several items wanted there and two pubrs/ out for a vol. of my literary crit. AT BLOODY LAST.”

The final letter, from April 2, in full: “I asked you to take the Jeff/Muss to the Pictorial, as yr/ mother had given me information re/ their ability to PAY (i.e. a price worth getting). And that, I think, is what you shd. have done. Of course you may know better, but if so, you have not given me yr/ reasons. Curtis Brown who seem to be gittin’ on with my work in England want the mss/ also in America. I can give you up till May first. If you haven’t found a GOOD home for it by then, I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to turn it over to C.R. Everett of Curtis Brown 10 East 49th. (that will have given you the first chances and from 6 weeks to 2 months clear). You might see Everett, and find out whether you can combine anything with him. It might be to yr/ advantage to take a special line on serialization rights or something. Or to see if you can work better WITH an established firm (which probably does know a bit more about contracts etc. than you are likely to). I have just given ten lectures in eleven days; so rest of my jobs abit behind time, and no spare for provdin’ you privately with philosophic reflections, not at the moment. Thanks for the clippings. more later.” Pound makes a variety of emendations to the letters in pencil. In overall very good to fine condition, with chips and short tears to edges, and splitting along folds.