New Directions Number 9: An Annual Exhibition Gallery of Divergent Literary Trends

Ed. James Laughlin. Contributors: Maya Deren, Tennessee Williams, Octavio Paz, Franz Kafka, Kenneth Rexroth, Paul Goodman, Henry Miller, Alex Comfort, William Carlos Williams, Paul Eluard, Jacques Barzun, Boris Pasternak, John Berryman, et al.

Published by Norfolk, CT: New Directions. Printed by Vail-Ballou Press in Binghamton, NY, 1946

About this Item

[LITERATURE]. Ed. James Laughlin. Contributors: Maya Deren, Tennessee Williams, Octavio Paz, Franz Kafka, Kenneth Rexroth, Paul Goodman, Henry Miller, Alex Comfort, William Carlos Williams, Paul Eluard, Jacques Barzun, Boris Pasternak, John Berryman, et al. "New Directions Number 9: An Annual Exhibition Gallery of Divergent Literary Trends." Norfolk, CT: New Directions. Printed by Vail-Ballou Press in Binghamton, NY, 1946. First edition. English language. Hardcover with tan cloth boards stamped black and orange on spine, lacking jacket. Collection of fiction, poetry, criticism, and essays, from canonical luminaries of twentieth-century literature, including six black-and-white illustrations and editor's notes. 9 1/4 x 6 inches. 27 oz. xxiv, 416 pp. No jacket. Wear, toning, age on boards. Light spotting on spine. Paper abraded on front free endpaper. Toning. Text clean. Good Plus. No ISBN. OCLC: 764717392. ASIN: B004TU3OBO. "Laughlin, the aging heir to a Pittsburgh steel fortune, was a publishing legend. In 1936, at the age of twenty-two and at the advice of Ezra Pound, he founded New Directions, which quickly became the premier avant-garde publishing house, almost synonymous with literary modernism in the US. Early on, Laughlin adeptly presented Random House as the commercial foil to New Directions in frequent attacks that he published, such as James T. Farrell?s 'Will the Commercialization of Publishing Destroy Good Writing?' in New Directions 9. Laughlin?s strategy was clever. Not only was he filling, with his front and backlists, a market niche prepared by Random House?s publication of books like James Joyce?s 'Ulysses' and Gertrude Stein?s oeuvre, but his attacks themselves were a commercial tactic. They made his brand. Laughlin was 'disavowing an interest in marketing while constantly trying to think up new marketing techniques.' It is a familiar gambit, to claim authenticity by differentiating oneself from a sell-out, then to use that authenticity to profit.".

Seller Inventory # 01590

Bibliographic Details

• Title: New Directions Number 9: An Annual Exhibition Gallery of Divergent Literary Trends
• Publisher: Norfolk, CT: New Directions. Printed by Vail-Ballou Press in Binghamton, NY
• Publication Date: 1946
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good Plus.
• Dust Jacket Condition: No jacket.
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature