Gypsy & Other Poems

[Leeds, Massachusetts]: The Gehenna Press, 1989. 4to, gray paste-paper over light gray cloth spine with gray paste paper over boards, gilt-stamped red morocco title labels on spine and upper cover. [13] pp., 2 etchings, colophon. Pencil signed. CONDITION: Fine. One of 325 numbered copies, signed by the illustrator, Leonard Baskin. Copy #308. With a portrait etching of Baldwin printed on blue paper and an etching of a pomegranate printed in red. From the colophon: “Three hundred & twenty-five copies of ‘Gypsy & Other Poems’ were printed by The Gehenna Press during the Spring of 1989. The poems are copyrighted by David Baldwin. The special casting (truncated) of Centaur was made by Harold Berliner’s Typefoundry at Nevada City, Calif. The presswork was achieved at Wild Carrot letterpress of Hadley, Mass. The etchings have been printed from the copperplates. The edition is arranged as follows: copies numbered 1–50 have a portfolio of etched portraits, signed & numbered by the artist and are specially bound; copies 51–325 have a signed & numbered etched portrait. Six special copies, ‘hors d’edition’, lettered a–f, contain an original copper & a drawing. This is copy number 308.” Regarding this work, Baskin noted “Departing from its new preciosity, the press issued ‘Gypsy’, a book of unpublished poems by James Baldwin, a recent friend, who had been moved by the Othello woodcuts. The book that we discussed doing turned, alas, into a volume memorializing Baldwin. He died unexpectedly and prematurely. I etched six portraits of Baldwin from early manhood to the visage of his last years.” REFERENCES: The Gehenna Press, the Work of Fifty Years, #93. (Inventory #: 9734)