Gallagher, Tess; Raymond Carver.

COLLECTOR’S SMALL ARCHIVE OF SIGNED BOOKS, CORRESPONDENCE, BROADSIDE, and EPHEMERA; [Including TYPED LETTER SIGNED, AUTOGRAPH POSTCARD SIGNED, and an inscribed copy of the very limited, true first edition of Gallagher’s first book, PORTABLE KISSES, published in 1978 by Sea Pen Press].

Various places: Various publishers, 1978 - 2007. Collection assembled by Allen K. Mears. Includes 2-page TLS from Gallagher with extensive handwritten portion and two enclosures; Autograph Postcard Signed from Gallagher; 4 books (2 are later printings) signed and/or inscribed by Gallagher; a broadside signed by Gallagher; a few items of ephemera related to Carver; correspondence with artist and publisher Suzanne Ferris of Sea Pen Press; and copies of Mears’ own letters.

TYPED LETTER SIGNED -- evidently printed from a computer; dated August 17, 1999; 2 pages with most of the 2nd page being HANDWRITTEN; discusses the posthumously published collection of Carver’s poetry, ALL OF US; her plans at the time – or, in this case, her lack of plans -- for writing a memoir of her and Carver’s time together (“...it is rather more woven into the introductions I’ve done to Ray’s books”); her handling of and coping with widowhood (“...in a sense, I haven’t suffered the same way perhaps other widows suffer a loss”); the solace afforded by having spent their “last three months ... [focusing] .... on the making of his last book”; and her objection to various reviews of ALL OF US (“...the NY Bk Review .... misused the poetry to stomp out the wine of the stories,” and a review in Poetry Flash was “very poor in its scholarship & basic understanding”). INCLUDES TWO ENCLOSURES: photocopy of the review of ALL OF US in “Poetry Flash” with handwritten note from Gallagher on post-it affixed; and 65-page offprint from the academic journal “Philosophy and Literature” that prints the two short plays the couple wrote together (“CAN I GET YOU ANYTHING?” and “THE FAVOR”) as well as “A Nightshine Beyond Memory: Ten More Years with Ray,” an essay Gallagher wrote 10 years after Carver’s death.

AUTOGRAPH POSTCARD SIGNED – front has photograph of Carver and Gallagher by Bob Adelman; dated 6/30/99, the message thanks collector Allen K. Mears for his letters sent to Stephen Young, Senior editor of Poetry Magazine, in reaction to a review of ALL OF US in the July 1999 issue, “The Poetics of Populism” by David Orr. Copies of Mears’ letters and Young’s original TLS in response are included, as well as the July 1999 issue of the magazine.

PORTABLE KISSES, (Seattle: Sea Pen Press and Paper Mill, 1978): First edition, #24 of 100 copies; SIGNED in full beneath her printed name on title page and additionally INSCRIBED on 5/28/92, “for Al Mears after/ meeting in Maryland --/ Very Best/ Tess”; printed on handmade paper and hand-bound in rough vellum; fine. Also includes related correspondence with the artist and publisher Suzanne Ferris of Sea Pen Press answering questions about the book (as well as the Press’s backlist and prospectuses for other works) and TLS from Gallagher’s secretary, Dorothy Catlett, noting Gallagher has “received the wonderful news” that first printings of her recent books of poetry had sold out and gone into second printings.

A NEW PATH TO THE WATERFALL, (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989): by Raymond Carver, with introduction by Gallagher; #133 of 200 numbered and specially bound copies SIGNED BY GALLAGHER. Fine in fine slipcase.

DIM HOUSE, BRIGHT FACE (Minneapolis: Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1989): # 74 of 150 numbered copies SIGNED BY GALLAGHER; broadside issued on the occasion of Gallagher’s reading in The Loft Mentor Series, March 10, 1989. Designed & printed by Ann Borman, Tournesol Press; illustration by Susan Nees. Fine.

MOON CROSSING BRIDGE: Poetry, (St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1992): first edition, second printing; SIGNED in full beneath her printed name on title page and additionally INSCRIBED on 5/2/92, “for Al Mears--/ as you cross your own/ moons – poems for Ray, and/ me, and you --/ Tess”; fine in fine dust jacket.

THE LOVER OF HORSES: And Other Stories, (St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1992): Second printing of the “Graywolf Short Fiction Series” reissue of her 1986 first book of stories; SIGNED in full beneath her printed name on title page and additionally INSCRIBED on 5/2/92, “for Al Mears--/ my 1st stories, but/ not my last!/ Best-/ Tess”; fine in paperwraps.

MISCELLANEOUS EPHEMERA:

“Wake Up.” “Another Mystery,” “No Need,” and “Hummingbird” in Poetry Magazine, April 1989 (Carver's posthumously published “last poems”).

2 copies of the program for the 2006 PEN/Faulkner tribute to Carver at the Folger Theatre, Washington, DC, together with ticket stub from the event.

“The Landscapes of Raymond Carver” by William Booth in Washington Post Magazine, Sept. 16, 2007.

“Rough Crossings: The Cutting of Raymond Carver” by Simon Armitage (discusses Carver and his editor at Knopf, Gordon Lish); “Letters to an Editor” (excerpts from Carver’s correspondence with Lish, 1969 -1983); and “Beginners” (the submitted draft of the story Lish re-titled,“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” and cut by 40%) in The New Yorker, Dec. 24 & 31, 2007.

Altogether in fine condition.
Item #56185

Price: $750.00