Paterson by William Carlos Williams

Though now he is celebrated most for his brevity, Paterson is Williams’ magnum opus, his answer to the magnum opuses of his peers (Eliot’s Waste Land and Pound’s Cantos spring to mind) and his grandest attempt to find a distinctly American poetic voice and pose for the 20th century. The result is this series of five books, published between 1946 and 1958 by New Directions, which take as their subject the town of Paterson, New Jersey, and ‘the resemblance between the mind of modern man and the city’, all told in a powerful vernacular. This is the complete set of first editions, all in Fine condition or close to it, with none of the soiling almost always seen on these textured dust jackets. Scarce, the first four volumes having been limited to 1000 copies and the fifth to 3000.