LAND OF UNLIKENESS Inscribed to Randall Jarrell

(Cummington, MA): Cummington Press, 1944. First Edition. Hardcover. Small ink date of 1944 at the bottom right corner of the title page, likely in Jarrell's hand. Mild sunning to the spine which has a small, neat repair at the head; lacking the plain tissue dustwrapper. Near Fine in a Fine box. Publisher's blue boards stamped in orange, title page printed in red and black with woodcut in blue by Gustav Wolf. Housed in a half blue morocco leather slipcase. Introduction by Allen Tate. Lowell's scarce first book, limited to a total of 250 copies printed. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front free endpaper to poet Randall Jarrell: "For Randall/with affection and admiration/and no apologies for dogma,/Cal." Lowell was nicknamed Caligula at preparatory school, and the diminutive "Cal" stuck with him throughout his life. Lowell and Jarrell met at Kenyon College, where they were roommates, and became lifelong friends, each providing valuable criticism of the other's work. In 1965, Lowell eulogized the friend who had been one of two beneficiaries of his will: "Randall Jarrell was the only man I have ever met who could make other writers feel that t heir work was more important to him than his own." Along with the copies Lowell presented to John Crowe Ransom--at the University of Texas--and Allen Tate--in a private collection--this is one of the three most compelling association copies imaginable.

Allen Tate, in his introduction to this collection, tempers his praise with a fair assessment of Lowell's current stature and potential, heralding a lasting presence in American poetry: "The history of poetry shows that good verse does not inevitably make its way; but unless, after the war, the small public for poetry shall exclude all except the democratic poets who enthusiastically greet the advent of the slave-society, Robert Lowell will have to be reckoned with." Two years later, Lowell would win the Pulitzer Prize for LORD WEARY'S CASTLE, at the age of 30.