Item #4878 A USELESS DEATH - CORRECTED TYPESCRIPT, TOGETHER WITH A SIGNED COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. Patti Smith.
A USELESS DEATH - CORRECTED TYPESCRIPT, TOGETHER WITH A SIGNED COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION
A USELESS DEATH - CORRECTED TYPESCRIPT, TOGETHER WITH A SIGNED COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION
A USELESS DEATH - CORRECTED TYPESCRIPT, TOGETHER WITH A SIGNED COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION

A USELESS DEATH - CORRECTED TYPESCRIPT, TOGETHER WITH A SIGNED COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION

[New York: S.i., n.d. but 1970-1972]. Smith's working typescript for this early poetry chapbook – one of two published the same year Smith's book Seventh Heaven was published by Telegraph Books – containing a poem Smith first wrote in 1970. Published and distributed by The Gotham Book Mart, where during her early years in New York Smith often supplemented her income by scouting rare books on the side. A single poem, narrated by someone on a scaffold waiting to die, while watching the execution of a queen and her 30 ladies in waiting, who are all forced to dig their own graves. A wonderful survival; Smith material of this vintage, and significance, is exceedingly uncommon. Item #4878

Bifolium (21.75cm); original typescript on both sides of a single sheet of white bond (measuring 8.5" x 11"), folded once vertically to create a [4]pp pamphlet, closely mirroring the final layout of the text. With extensive holograph corrections and a few small drawings in two hands – Smith's (in red felt-tipped marker and blue ballpoint pen) and another, undetermined hand (in pencil, which we suspect is Andreas Brown's). Horizontal fold smoothed-out at center, a few tiny crease and tears to extremities, with some scattered soil and staining, and some bleed-through from the red marker; complete and Very Good.

Offered together with a copy of the First Edition (New York: The Gotham Book Mart, 1972). One of 300 numbered copies signed by the author, this being copy no.9. Slim octavo (21.5cm); pictorial wrappers, stapled; [8]pp. Faint scuff to rear wrapper, else Fine. Housed together in a custom half-morocco clamshell case.

Price: $12,500.00

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