[ornament] ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD / WRITTEN BY THOMAS GRAY AND NEWLY / CREATED INTO AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK BY / JOHN VASSOS [ornament] / [sketch of a gravestone] / E.P. DUTTON AND CO., INC / PUBLISHERS [ornament]
235 x 180mm. Bound in ¼ black cloth with linen colored cloth sides; title with ornaments stamped in gold on front cover and spine; typography by S.A. Jacobs, The Half Moon Press, NY. Collection PDV, SUL, MN.
1 half-title 2-3 blank 4 frontispiece 5 title 6 copyright notice 7 dedication to Kostes Palamas 8 blank 9 half-title 10 blank 11, 15, 19...-80 = 40 leaves
4 Frontispiece
13 And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
17 The moping owl does to the moon complain / Of such as, wand'ring near
her secret bow'r, / Molest her ancient solitary reign.
21 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, / the swallow twitt'ring
from the straw-built shed.
25 How jocund did they drive their team afield! / How bow'd the moods
beneath their sturdy stroke!
29 The paths of glory lead by to the grave.
33 Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, / Or flatt'ry soothe the
dull cold ear of death?
37 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid / Some heart once pregnant with
celestial fire; / Heads, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, / Or wak'd
the extasy the living lyre.
41 Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, / Some Cromwell, guiltless
of his country's blood.
45 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
49 Far from the maddening crowds ignoble strife /
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; /Along the cool sequester'd vale of
life / They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
53 And many a holy text around she strews, / That teach the rustic
moralist to die.
57 E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, / E'en in our ashes live
their wonted fires.
62 "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn / Brushing with hasty
steps the dews away, / To meet the sun upon the upland lawn."
65 "Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love."
69 "Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne:-"
73 Here rests his head upon the lap of earth / A youth, to fortune and to
fame unknown.
77 (There they alike in trembling hope repose), / The bosom of his Father
and his God
Dust jacket printed black on buff. It appeared in two versions, one for the U.S. market and one for the British with the price indicated.
U.S.: [Row of identical ornaments extending along the full width of the dust-jacket] / A NEW EDITION OF / GRAY'S / ELEGY / WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY / JOHN VASSOS / E.P. DUTTON & CO., INC / [Row of identical ornaments extending along the full width of the dust-jacket]
U.K.: [Row of identical ornaments extending along the full width of the dust-jacket] / A NEW EDITION OF / GRAY'S / ELEGY / WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY / JOHN VASSOS / NEW YORK: / E.P. DUTTON & CO., INC / [Row of identical ornaments extending along the full width of the dust-jacket] / LONDON: / J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD
GRAY'S ELEGY [ORNAMENT] VASSOS
Advertisement for Gray's Elegy the text of which reads:
"Vassos, with his cosmic style, enlarges the conception of the Elegy, which has heretofore been confined to the miniature. The sweep and scope of his drawings elevate the particular to the realm of the universal: this is not only the glimmering twilight of the little churchyard where the poet sat, but the eternal idea of Night settling down all over the countryside; and the reader will feel the mystery not only of the death of this humble swain buried in Stoke Poges but of Death itself...
The illustrations of Mr. Vassos have that economy of line and starkness of beauty that characterizes Gray's stanzas, and they subtly convey the delicate yet arbitrary vicissitudes of man's years between his cradle and his tombstone."
The 1936 "Catalogue of Publications" listed this title at $3.75. It was short-listed in 1942. Internal documents from E.P. Dutton dated June 2, 1933 show that between October 23, 1931 and April 30, 1933 1225 copies were sold Vassos receiving $244.80 total at $.70 each. As with his other titles, sales were strong, 673 sold in the first month and 488 in the succeeding 5 months, before dropping off dramatically. (1) It is not indicated whether the U.K. sales are included in that amount. On July 19th, 1932 Elliott Macrae wrote to Vassos seemingly concerned with the pace of his work on the illustrations for Kubla Khan. In that same letter he also mentioned that " less than 2000 copies were sold of Gray's Elegy. (2) Based on the figures mentioned earlier, it would seem that quite a bit fewer than 2000 were sold.
Other primary
sources of information on Gray's Elegy are very scarce in the E.P. Dutton Papers
as well John Vassos Papers held at Syracuse University. Among them are these
interesting pieces. The first, a letter from a Miss Adelaide C. Hibbard at the
Trinity Church Parish House, in Columbus, Ohio, who wrote to point out two
errors in the "typography of the edition." These errors appear in the
text opposite the illustrations to verses 7 and 12. In the first instance
"woods" is misspelled as "moods" and in the second
"hands" is misspelled as "heads." She went on to point out
that "in this beautiful volume, it does seem a tragedy that careless or
rapid proof-reading should mar an otherwise perfect production which I had
intended as a gift. I suppose that this is another proof of the haste and
negligence (in place of painstaking care) with which we, as citizens of the
United States are characterized. You make it increasingly difficult for the book
store which stocks your publications and the customer, who unknowingly, make
their purchase." (3) Both copies held by PDV
as well as the copy held at the Syracuse University Library exhibit these
errors.
In another, "MSY" replying for E.P. Dutton apologized for the fact that Miss Hibbard was unable to use the book for a Christmas gift with the comment that "we have been aware from the very beginning that two typographical errors occurred in Gray's ELEGY as illustrated by John Vassos. When the page proofs went back to the printer, they were correct; what happened after that to bring about these two errors is still a mystery, even in the printing office. The plates have been corrected for the next printing."(4) A copy of a note from John Macrae to Hugh Dent dated December 8, 1932 includes a note at the top about an English bookseller having found 3 errors.
In a letter dated December 8, 1932 to Hugh Dent, John Macrae again apologizes for these errors, but also admits that he expected the English critics to "jump flatfooted on the back of John Vassos," but for other reasons having to do with the tone and feeling of the illustrations. He writes that, "we in America feel that Gray's Elegy, while it originated in England, does not solely and completely belong to England. After the landing of the earliest Americans and when a certain limited amount of culture was beginning, Americans absorbed the Elegy, took it to their breast and folded it well in their brain. Americans feel that it is part of their literature. We do not claim that it originated here; we look upon it somewhat as we look upon Shakespeare, who having originated in England, reached one foot across the Atlantic and rested firmly upon our shores. In a bigger and broader sense, we look upon the Elegy somewhat as you look upon the Bible; we call it American literature."
The "conflict" here resulted from what the English regarded as a very American setting, that of a church graveyard, which they did not feel was appropriate to a work they felt was English. Macrae continues, "John Vassos started out to illustrate the Elegy; not knowing the soil of England, except from the deck of a destroyer (a reference to his service in the British Navy during WW I), he gave to the Elegy the only pictures which his imagination could produce by his method of art. I lovingly and jokingly informed him that when that set of illustrations came in, that if any Britisher should ever see that book, he was likely to tear his hair or fly into a rage over the first picture in the book – the frontispiece. As the first picture gave the tone and the temper to all the rest, it is not surprising that John Vassos adopted a New England churchyard, and on the original one painted in the immortal words of Thomas Gray."
"I expected the English not to like John Vassos' Gray's Elegy, and I was surprised when Hugh Dent felt that here was something which should be offered to the English critic as coming from America. Your feeling for that which is genuine in art and new and fresh, impelled me to think of this book as something which the most elite of English should have an opportunity to look at. It is interesting to me, as I am sure it will be to you, that a man who had made a very definite and strong place for himself and his particular expression of art should be so seriously frowned upon by the cultivated Englishmen, who properly and naturally place the Elegy on a pedestal, which should not be approached by anyone who is not bred in the bone of the English."
Again, I am sorry about these "dumb" mistakes in the text; but I am not at all sorry about John Vassos' "dumb" pictures for the ELEGY." (5)
It should be noted here that Hugh Dent was the editor of J.M. Dent, a subsidiary of E.P. Dutton based in England, which also published Kubla Khan in 1934, one year after its American release.
As an aside, the dedication to of Gray's Elegy to Kostas Palamas is interesting, because the E.P. Dutton Papers contain two references to a translation of some poems by Palamas and possibly illustrated by Vassos. In the first dated September 18th, 1929, M.S.Y., an editor with Dutton, writes, "we have read and carefully considered them very carefully, but are sorry to say that they have not been found available for publication." Enclosed with this rejection letter was the manuscript. Vassos resubmitted the manuscript asking Dutton to reconsider, but was told, in a letter dated November 4th, 1929, that they had not changed their minds and that the manuscript was being returned "with thanks for having let us see it a second time." No letters from Vassos could be found concerning this work.. (6)
1. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence. John Vassos: Royalty Earned and Deductions to Apr. 30, 1933. June 2, 1933.
2. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
3. Letter from Adelaide C. Hibbard to E.P. Dutton, December 18th , 1931. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
4. Letter from "MSY" to Adelaide C. Hibbard, Jaunary 7, 1932. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
5. Letter from John Macrae to Hugh Dent, December 8, 1932. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
6. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.