{"id":732,"date":"2016-04-01T15:12:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T15:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/?p=732"},"modified":"2016-04-10T22:26:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-10T22:26:16","slug":"the-first-us-edition-of-the-waste-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/2016\/04\/01\/the-first-us-edition-of-the-waste-land\/","title":{"rendered":"The First US Edition of The Waste Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eliot1\"<\/a>[Posted by Jia Yu for ENG 812 Modern Poetry, Professor Rosen]<\/p>\n

T.S. Eliot\u2019s The Waste Land<\/em> was published as a single book by Boni&Liveright in November, 1922. The first edition of The Waste Land<\/em> comprises of 1000 copies, and one of these can be viewed at Watkinson Library, Trinity College. The book I held in hand is about the size of an A5 notebook and has 64 pages in total. Judging from its appearance, the book probably has been checked out many times by readers over the years. The stiff board binding is lose, and the place for a title sticker is torn off from the black canvas cover (Fig.1). According to the bookplate, the book was initially received by Trinity Library as a special collection with the donation from Elton Fund, which was founded by a Trinity alumni, John, P. Eton, in 1854, and this collection later merged with Watkinson Library after it was built.<\/p>\n

The worn-outness does not veil the aura the book emits. On the limitation page, it writes, in 5mm type front: \u201c\u201cOf the one thousand copies printed \/of The Waste Land this volume is \/number 894\u201d (Fig.2) Gazing at it seems to throw you into an imagined community \u2013who are the original readers of the first thousand copies? The number 894 becomes enigmatic which seems not only to identity the uniqueness of the book, and offers an imaginary space for its readers. With this design, the editor seems to have in his mind the future collective value of the book.<\/p>\n

Reading the poem in a book format is slightly different from reading it in Eliot\u2019s Selected Poem<\/em>s. Unlike Selected Poems<\/em>, one has \u201cSweeney Among the \"Eliot2\"<\/a>Nightingales\u201d before it and \u201cThe Hollow Men\u201d after the poem, which all might have impacted one\u2019s understanding of The Waste Land<\/em>. As a single book, the poem becomes its own context and content. Firstly, the epigraph that is printed in the beginning of the poem is moved to the title page. The epigraph is put in the middle of the title page, between the author\u2019s name and the name of the publisher. By making the epigraph a part of the title page, the editor separates it from the rest of the poem and gives a weightier meaning to the title itself. Only after flipping through the limitation page, the second half title page, one finally finds the real poem. In addition, the book invites a participatory experience towards the reading.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, copious notes are made by several different readers. These note makers attempt to identify the sources of the quotes and at the same time try to unravel what is Eliot\u2019s intention. For example, one find notes marks about the allusion, such as \u201cPhilomel\u201d beside \u201cTwit twit twit\/Jug jug jug jug jug\/So rudely forc\u2019d\/Tereu\u201d (30). One also find comment like \u201chumanism?\u201d beside \u201cOh keep the Dog far hence, that\u2019s friend to men,\u201d (16); One writes \u201cTo Hollow man\u201d beside \u201cDo you know nothing? Do you see nothing?\/Do you remember\/ nothing?\u201d (21); one writes \u201ctempest\u201d beside the sentence \u201cThose are pearls that were his eyes.\u201d One also finds \u201cextreme despair?\u201d\u00a0 beside \u201cWhat shall we ever do? (22); One marks \u201cextreme despair?\u201d beside \u201cwhat shall we ever do?\u201d And one marks \u201cform of grief\u201d beside \u201cTreu\u201d (31). For these readers, reading The Waste Land<\/em> means putting a lot of effort of identifying connections, just as what we were doing in class.<\/p>\n

On the last page of the book, one finds an \u201cepitaph\u201d -two readers\u2019 response to the book that further affirm the authorial ethos this book attempt to present (Fig. 3). These two notes are transcribed as below:<\/p>\n

\"Eliot3\"<\/a>Eliot\u2019s presentation is good- Lasting examples! – although- he writes absolutely and many can not gain the entire value – modern man is in a hurry \u201cHurry up please its times\u201d – can\u2019t take time to analyze all material again greatest fruits.<\/p>\n

Modern moralists recognize the fault in the 20th cent(ury) human but do not give any corrective measures- Philip Wylie, (An) Essay on Morals, Eliot does!<\/p>\n

Judging from the tone of the writing, the first note probably comes from the first owner of the book. He is delighted to find the poem resonant with the fast pace of modern life. The second reader responds both to the first reader and the book itself. He cited from a book to argue that the modern writer does give a \u201ccorrective measures\u201d to the fault of modern life. \u00a0Since this book, Philip Wylie\u2019s An Essay on Moral<\/em> is published in 1947, the note is definitely made later than that. Over twenty years, the first reader identifies Eliot as a speaking voice for his time and the second reader attempt to read him into a representative moralist figure. Both readers recognize the positive energy Eliot generalizes in a poem seemingly full of despairs. The reverence they give to him seems hard to understand yet the original dust jacket does provide a possible answer.<\/p>\n

According to the photos of the original dust jacket I retrieved from New York Public Library Digital Resources, these responses correspond with the advertised value of this book. On the front side of the dust jacket, it presents the book title and a text box illustrating this poem as the 1922 Dial award. The left flap of the jacket contains an introduction of the poem, which praises it as a synthesis of all of Eliot\u2019s early works, and gives a universal voice to addresses the despair and resignation arising from spiritual and economic consequences of the war. Published three years after WWI, the series number \u201c894\u201d can be identified as any individual in the society who tries to understand his life in the wasteland of the culture. And through this design, one sees in this book how a publisher attempts to preserve an author\u2019s aura in the age of mechanical reproduction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Posted by Jia Yu for ENG 812 Modern Poetry, Professor Rosen] T.S. Eliot\u2019s The Waste Land was published as a single book by Boni&Liveright in November, 1922. The first edition of The Waste Land comprises of 1000 copies, and one of these can be viewed at Watkinson Library, Trinity College. The book I held in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,13,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}