"The fuss made over this fool poem ("W. of W.") almost made me renounce verse-making forever."
Sterling, George. A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1909. First edition. 137 pages.
A nicely inscribed copy of this book containing what was, perhaps, Sterling's most well-known poem in his day, "A Wine of Wizardry." The poem first appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1907, accompanied by a hyperbolic note of praise from Ambrose Bierce, "Not in our lifetime has our literature had any new thing of equal length containing so much poetry and so little else." The title poem is a mystical, allusion-laden ode to the wonder of drinking wine and watching the sunset on San Francisco Bay. The poem and Bierce's praise invoked considerable controversy and several parodies.
The San Francisco Examiner, in its editorial pages, took a dim view of the work, "five lines from "A Wine of Wizardry" would drive a man to beat a cripple, and ten lines would send him to the bottom of the river."
This copy wass inscribed in 1923, in Hollywood, three years before Sterling took his own life, and the poet alludes to the controversy: "The fuss made over this fool poem ("W. of W.") almost made me renounce verse-making forever. Ever your friend, George. Hollywood, Oct. 10, 1923." This copy is inscribed a second time on the half-title, "For George. R. Hyde from George A. Sterling." As is usually the case with signed copies of this title, the author also corrected a typographic error on p. 47.
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Sterling is best remembered today as a central figure in the California literary world in the early part of the 20th century. Jack London was one of his closest friends, he mentored Robinson Jeffers, and was widely celebrated as California's greatest poet during his lifetime. He was a member and resident of the Bohemian Club, in San Francisco, and died there after taking cyanide in 1926. BAL 18751B (second issue binding, without the sundial ornament on the front cover).
A near fine copy in maroon boards and gilt titles; gilt lettering on spine dimmed. Bookplate of Gaylord Beaman, a Los Angeles businessman active in E. Clampus Vitus in the 1930s. Lacking the presumed dust jacket, as usual. [10P]. (#S854)
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