“THREE BE THE THINGS I SHALL NEVER ATTAIN: ENVY, CONTENT, AND SUFFICIENT CHAMPAGNE”: FIRST EDITION OF DOROTHY PARKER’S FIRST VOLUME OF VERSE
PARKER, Dorothy. Enough Rope. Poems. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926. Slim octavo, original half black cloth, original patterned paper-covered boards, original dust jacket.
First edition of the Algonquin wit’s first collection of poems. A beautiful copy in scarce original dust jacket.
“After a career as a dramatic and literary critic in her native New York City, during which she achieved an almost legendary reputation for her malicious and sardonic bon mots, [Parker] published her first book of poetry, Enough Rope (1926). This and the two volumes that followed, Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931)… are works of light, satirical verse, characterized by brilliant concision, flippant cynicism, and caustic variations on certain dominant themes, such as frustrated love and cheated idealism in modern living” (Hart, 569). “Her light verse is excellent… Constantly ‘betrayed’ by unsatisfactory and unreliable lovers, Parker fought back in sharp epigrammatic verse, critical of men— particularly of the highbrows and Bohemians who were her usual companions” (Hamilton, 409). Includes Parker’s famous paeon to suicide methods, “Résumé;” “Comment,” where she finds a rhyme for the word extemporanea; and “News Item,” one of her most famous and most often unattributed poems: “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses.”
Book fine, with minor offsetting to pages 100 and 101. Scarce dust jacket exceptionally lovely, with light toning to spine, unobtrusive half-inch closed tear to bottom of rear panel. A nearly fine copy, scarce in such excellent condition.