Y & X by Charles Olson, illus. Corrado Cagli

OLSON, Charles; Corrado CAGLI, illustrator. Y & X. [Paris], Black Sun Press, Caresse Cosby, 1948.

First edition, one of the 118 known copies of this collection of poems by Charles Olson, handsomely illustrated by the Italian painter Corrado Cagli.

Charles Olson, a second-generation American modernist poet, is considered a key figure in American poetry for his contribution to the shift from modernism to postmodernism.  He also played a crucial role as a linking figure between earlier poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, and the subsequent wave of New American poets.

This collection, featuring five poems, stands among Olson’s early published works. At least 118 copies are known to have been printed, despite a publisher’s announcement indicating a total of 520 copies.

The Black Sun Press was an English-language publishing house based in Paris. Founded in 1927 by American expatriates Harry and Caresse Crosby, it published the early works of influential literary figures such as Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Crane, D. H. Lawrence, and Hemingway. The books, all handset, were typographically impeccable and beautifully bound. The Black Sun Press closed in 1970, following Caresse Crosby’s death.

Slim quarto, 12 pages in a fold out sheet, with five poems and five monochrome illustrations; in very good condition, retaining the original glassine dust wrapper (dust wrapper with a few small chips and tears to spine).

Minkoff A-52; Butterick and Glover, A Bibliography of the Works of Charles Olson (1967), A3.