WARREN, Robert Penn (1905–1989). Incarnations: Poems 1966–1968. New York: Random House, 1968.
FIRST EDITION, SIGNED LIMITED ISSUE. ONE OF 250 COPIES SIGNED BY ROBERT PENN WARREN. This is copy no. 77.
Of the first edition of Incarnations, Random House reserved just 250 copies for a special issue, printed on special paper, specially bound, individually numbered, and signed by Warren. This copy is numbered 77 and bears Warren’s full signature on the limitation page.
The poems were written between 1966 and 1968, immediately after Warren completed the preparation of his Selected Poems: New and Old, 1923–1966. They belong to the mature period of a writer whose unusual place in American literature rests equally on fiction and poetry. Warren had already won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for All the King’s Men and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Promises; he would later win a second poetry Pulitzer for Now and Then, becoming the only writer to receive Pulitzer Prizes in both fiction and poetry.
64 pages. Original blue cloth, yellow endpapers and green top edge, in the original typographic dust jacket designed by Betty Anderson. The jacket’s overlapping grey letterforms against a black ground make it a particularly striking example of late-1960s Random House design.
Condition: Very good to near fine in the original dust jacket. Binding firm and interior clean. Warren’s signature and limitation number are clear and well preserved. Jacket with light handling and shelf wear, minor rubbing and a few small marks. Lacking the publisher’s original black board slipcase.
