The Ego and the Centaur [*SIGNED*]

New York: New Directions. Good in Poor dj. (c.1947). (see note). Hardcover. [shelfworn copy, with several bumped corners, dampstaining at both ends of spine and a bit along the bottom edges of the covers; jacket is age-browned, soiled, small bits of paper loss here and there, heavily water-stained along spine, partially split along rear hinge -- a bit of a fragile mess, frankly, held together only by a shiny new jacket protector]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the poet on the ffep: "For George Kirgo / 'While Shakespeare remains, literature is firm' / Jean Garrigue / Sept 3, 1942, in full-dress moonlight." The first book (and first full-length publication) (truncated) by this Indiana-born poet, whose "life and work disappeared from critical and academic view" soon after her death at the age of 60 in 1972. That's per the unusually erudite Wikipedia writeup on her, which also posits that "Garrigue did not belong to a poetic school or movement, and asserted her intellectual, artistic, and emotional independence throughout her life," and notes that generally speaking (despite a moderate resurgence of interest in her work during the 1980s) her work has been neglected by most anthologists, and "continues to escape the notice of the traditional critical establishment, with its preference for a classical simplicity and clarity, and of the more recent feminist critics, to whom she makes no overt appeal." [NOTES: (1) I can't absolutely confirm this as a first printing, as a couple of the books listed on the rear jacket flap appear to have first been published by New Directions a little later than 1947. (2) This copy of the book contains the Errata slip, laid in at page 55, correcting the omission of four lines and three stanzas of the poem "Marriage Is a Mystery of Joy." (3) The inscribee, George Kirgo, was a longtime film and TV writer who served as President of the Writers Guild of America, West, from 1987 to 1991.] Signed by Author . (Inventory #: 22778)