(U.S.)
KUBLA KHAN / SAMUEL COLERIDGE'S POEM WITH / INTERPRETIVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY / JOHN VASSOS / E P DUTTON & CO INC / NEW YORK 1933
(U.K.)
KUBLA KHAN / SAMUEL COLERIDGE'S POEM WITH / INTERPRETIVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY / JOHN VASSOS / LONDON / J M DENT & SONS LTD
Page with copyright notice on verso for the U.K. edition leaves out all mention of type and type designer. Notice itself reads:
All rights reserved/ Printed in U.S.A. / for / J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. / Aldine House Bedford St London / Toronto Vancouver / Melbourne Wellington / First published in this edition / New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc 1933 / London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1934
235 X 185mm. Bound in Ύ cream colored cloth with brown laid paper sides; stamped in gold; spine title runs from bottom to top: VASSOS: COLERIDGE'S KUBLA KHAN; type set in Bernhard Gothic Medium by Ross Crawford under the supervision of Lucian Bernhard.
There is no pagination. The poem with Vassos' interpretations is divided into numbered sections.
i half-title ii blank iii title page iv copyright notice v-viii artist's foreword ix-xiii "OF THE FRAGMENT OF KUBLA KHAN xiv blank xv-xviii the poem xix-dxxii = 36 leaves
Arabic numerals refer to sections as numbered by Vassos, Roman refer to "page number" of interpretation. Text taken from Vassos' "section titles."
1 xxiii IN XANADU...
2 xxvii WHERE ALPH...
3 xxxi SO TWICE FIVE MILES...
4 xxxv AND HERE WERE GARDENS...
5 xxxix BUT OH! THAT DEEP ROMANTIC CHASM
6 xliii A SAVAGE PLACE...
7 xlvii AND FROM THIS CHASM...
8 li AMID WHOSE SWIFT HALF-INTERMITTED BURST...
9 lv FIVE MILES MEANDERING...
10 lix AND 'MID THIS TUMULT
11 lxiii THE SHADOW OF THE DOME OF PLEASURE...
12 lxvii A DAMSEL WITH A DULCIMER...
13 lxxi AND ALL WHO HEARD...
No Information available.
In the Spring 1968 issue of the Syracuse University Library Associates' Courier, a "more recent drawing" by Vassos was featured on the front cover of the publication with an introduction by John S. Mayfield. Mayfield was the editor and then Curator of Special Collections to whose library Vassos gave 7 of the original gouache illustrations for Kubla Khan as well as the manuscript of his (Vassos') foreword. Of the drawing, Vassos wrote in the foreword, "I have always felt that dispelling darkness is timeless and universal and I sincerely believe it is man's destiny." The introduction also mentions Vassos' frequent visits to Syracuse University where he was often a guest lecturer.
Unfortunately, other information in the form of reviews or correspondence was once again scant in both the John Vassos and E.P. Dutton Papers held at Syracuse University. What we do find is an exchange between Vassos and Elliott Macrae, Treasurer at E.P. Dutton concerning Vassos' schedule for completing the drawings. A memorandum asks that twenty copies of the completed work be given to Lucian Bernhard, who designed the book. Bernhard is one of the best know type designers of that period.(1)
On July 19th, 1932 Elliott Macrae wrote to Vassos seemingly concerned with the pace of his work on the illustrations for Kubla Khan. Writes Macrae, "has your imagination machinery been touched with the urge to complete Kubla Khan? We all know full well that your work cannot be turned out like hot dogs' not that there is any similarity between the two. Unless and until you feel that certain uncontrollable and unexplainable inspiration, I hope you will not feel it necessary to complete the illustrations.Kubla Khan in my humble opinion offers a great opportunity for your genius, but there is also many a pitfall unless it is done with every single bit of your enthusiasm. Macrae continues by reminding Vassos of the production schedule which meant that the illustrations were due on August 15th of 1932 and the deadline for publication and editorial copies on October 15th. Because less than 2000 copies were sold of Gray's Elegy, Macrae suggests printing 1500 copies of Kubla Khan as a start and lets Vassos know that he will not be getting greater than a $500 advance on the title, concluding "please don't shoot the treasurer for he is doing his bestest." (2)
Vassos writes, "I have read your letter of the 19th carefully and with full understanding. You need not feel at all embarrassed about curtailing my advance, after all the pleasure of doing a book is the main issue. I appreciate what you say about your schedule, but to have all the illustrations completed by August 15th really does not give me sufficient time. Illustrating Kubla Khan is a simple matter, but deciding the way it should be done is not simple, and it is that which I have just arrived at. If you want to postpone publication until next year, I am perfectly agreeable. Nevertheless I shall not be bound by the schedule but will go ahead and finish my illustrations when the urge is in full swing." He also comments with sarcasm on the blurb, for which no record has been found, saying that "I wish I had seen the blurb on Kubla Khan before it went into your Fall list. It may sound flowery, but it is not at all my work, or me, nor is it even Coleridge; Kubla Khan in the first place is not a Chinese vision, my work is certainly not influenced by the Byzantine school, and I was not born in Athens. Otherwise the blurb is splendid." (3)
John Macrae, who was president of E.P. Dutton, sent review copies of Kubla Khan to a group of selected individuals, among them headmasters of some "prep" schools and a pastor. Exactly what the criteria for their selection was is unclear, but the E.P. Dutton papers contain the responses from 4 of them.
Stanley Durkee, pastor at Plymouth Church wrote on October 23rd, 1933 "there is the architecture of a thought, the landscape of a dream a vision visualized. It is interpretive drawing illustrating revery in sleep. I go with him gladly on these unbusied excursions, finding new charm in the undefined. Thank-you for introducing me to this charming companion."
Eugene Smith of the Beaver County Day School (MA) wrote, also on October 23rd, that he "has found this very interesting and that he was much impressed by the interpretative imagination shown in the illustration. I think the head of the English Department is going to show it to some of her classes in literature soon as an illustration of an idea expressed both in words and in pictorial form."
On October 20th, 1933 Abby Sutherland of the Ogontz School in Pennsylvania wrote simply that "it only tells me again with new emphasis that I belong to a generation that is gone. The imagination in the poem seems to me to have no contact with the modern illustrations. So sorry, but I am grateful for your kindness in sending it to me."
Finally a Mr. Fowler of the Tower Hill School wrote on November 3rd, 1933 that "I have always liked Coleridge's Kubla Khan, not because I understood it, but because of its musical rhythm and vivid word pictures. After seeing Mr. Vassos' edition, I realize that he has given me something to keep in his interpretation and striking illustration of Kubla Khan. I have sat and studied these beautiful illustrations to see if I could analyze the effect of mysticism and other worldliness that he has managed to express in them. It is artists like Cezanne, Renard, and Vassos who are helping me gradually to comprehend that modern art is not insincere, but is attempting to restore the values that Raphael and da Vinci gave us. Again many thanks for Kubla Khan. I shall treasure it among my beautiful books." (4)
Included in the E.P. Dutton Papers was also the proof for an advertisement for Kubla Khandated November 15, 1933. The text, accompanied by a photo of Vassos, reads "Mr. Vassos is perhaps the outstanding book illustrator in America. His illustrated editions of Wilde's Salome, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Harlot's House, and Gray's Elegy have not only won the following unqualified praise from the critics but have enjoyed remarkable popular success. His gift for interpreting the literary masterpieces of the past in the spirit of the present was never better demonstrated than in this pictorial rendering of Coleridge's famous vision. It would be had not to find better specimens of symbolic. American Mercury. "Neither Blake nor Dore surpassed John Vassos' illustrations. They are appallingly and vividly beautiful." Jim Tully. A perfect gift book" (5)
1. Letter from Elliott Macrae to Lucian Bernhard, October 25, 1933. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
2. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
3. Letter from John Vassos to Elliot B. Macrae, July 25, 1932. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.
4. E.P. Dutton Papers, Box 55, Vassos, John and Ruth, Correspondence.