Distinguished Air. (Grim Fairy Tales)
Paris: Printed for Contact Editions at the Three Mountains Press, 1925. First edition. 158 pp. Publisher’s dark green morocco backstrip over marbled paper boards, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, blue silk ribbon marker bound in, errata slip bound in at the half-title. Some rubbing to the edges, corners, and spine, top corners a little bumped.
One of one hundred numbered copies on Arches paper, of a total edition of 115 copies. Three stories of gay life in Berlin in the 1920s, considered by many, including Pound and Joyce, to be McAlmon’s best work. In Being Geniuses Together, McAlmon said of the collection, “all of the stories in the book deal with variant types with complete objectivity, not intent on their ‘souls,’ and not distressed by their ‘morals.’” This was the last Three Mountains Press book that William Bird printed by hand, before selling his press to Nancy Cunard. Due to its subject matter it was barely circulated McAlmon wrote to Sylvia Beach that “for various reasons I don’t want a copy to get into England unless I know who it goes to, so I don’t want to let any copies be sold in Paris, except to people I know.” (Ford, Published in Paris, p. 65) Although not noted, from the collection of the author’s sister Victoria McAlmon. Fairly well represented institutionally, but rare otherwise; only four copies located in auction records over the past fifty years. Item #2627
Price: $3,500.00