The Emily Dickinson Successor
BOYLE, Kay. Short Stories. Paris:The Black Sun Press, Éditions Narcisse..1929.
8vo. Original printed wrappers with fold-over flaps enclosed in a glassine dust jacket with the publisher’s gold paper-covered board slipcase; pp. [8], 55, [3]; glassine dust jacket browned at spine and slightly chipped at head and tail; some minimal damp staining to back cover; board slipcase worn at spine and chipped at tail with tape repair; otherwise very good.
First edition, one of 150 numbered copies printed on Holland Van Gelder Zonen.
A staunch political activist later in life and a talented writer from Minnesota, Kay Boyle was a close friend of Harry and Caresse Crosby, the owners of the Black Sun Press and Short Stories was one of their earliest publications. Although she rebuked the romanticism of the "Lost Generation", she was a regular member of its distinguished cohort.
Her Short Stories were critically acclaimed upon publication with the American literary critic Eugene Jolas describing it as "a turning point in the evolution of American literature". She was someone whom William Carlos Williams regarded as the successor to Emily Dickinson.
Kay Boyle was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, was the winner of the O. Henry Award for best short story of the year both in 1935 and again in 1941, and achieved the Henry James chair of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died in 1992.
Minkoff A-19.
#2121211