White Buildings
New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926. First Edition. His first book (500 printed). Contemporary signed presentation copy inscribed by Crane (in ink), “For John Wolcott in memoriam the Cleveland days ‘where cuckoos clucked to finches’ Hart Crane.” The quote is from Crane’s poem, For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen, page 37 of this book (I found no other copy of White Buildings inscribed with a quotation). Very good in a 1st printing dustjacket, the spine faded and one fold strengthened, else very good. Rare, one of only 2 inscribed copies sold at auction in the last 40 years, the other in a defective jacket. Cancelled title page with Allan Tate’s name correctly spelled, but only review copies had the uncorrected state so our copy is not a 2nd issue since it exactly replicates the book as it was for sale on the day it was published, and Crane’s own copy was also in this state. Item #91
Hart Crane's first poetry collection, White Buildings, published in 1926, helped establish him as a leading voice in modernist poetry. The book showcases Crane's innovative style, marked by dense imagery, complex metaphors, and a non-linear, fragmented structure that evokes the rhythms of jazz and the disorienting experience of modern urban life. Poems like "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen" and "Voyages" display Crane's signature synthesis of classical mythology and contemporary urban scenery, casting the New York cityscape as a dreamlike realm where ancient archetypes intermingle with subways, skyscrapers, and bridges.
In "For The Marriage of Faustus and Helen," considered by critics one of his greatest poems, the line "Where cuckoos clucked to finches" appears in the penultimate stanza of the second part (of 3). The poem spans pages 37–44 of White Buildings. The line suggests the animated conversations taking place at a lively jazz club:
"O, I have known metallic paradises
Where cuckoos clucked to finches
Above the deft catastrophes of drums.
While titters hailed the groans of death
Beneath gyrating awnings I have seen
The incunabula of the divine grotesque.
This music has a reassuring way."
Crane's vision in White Buildings encompasses both the soaring optimism and existential despair of the 1920s, a decade of dizzying change as America underwent rapid industrialization and urbanization after World War I. Growing up in the north tower of his family's large home in Cleveland, Ohio (his father invented Lifesavers and other candies), Crane left behind childhood friends like Wolcott when, at the age of 17, he abandoned Cleveland for New York. White Buildings, the first of only two books published before his suicide at 32, remains a significant work by one of the preeminent and influential modernist poets.
Price: $17,500.00