STEFFENS. Lincoln - The Letters of Lincoln Steffens

New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938. Hardcover. Complete 2-volume set. Edited by Ella Winter and Granville Hicks. Memorandum by Carl Sandburg. Small 4to. Burgundy cloth with gilt spine lettering, dust jackets, slipcase with paper label. xxiv, 522pp; viii, pp. 525-1072. Illustrations. Fine/very good/very good. Both volumes tight and pristine, while dust jackets show mild rubbing and spine wear and slipcase is bright and superb. Quite handsome first edition of this large assemblage of the crusading investigative journalist and muckraker's correspondence. Best of all, this copy bears the bookplate on each front pastedown of GEORGE WEIDA SPOHN (1879-?), long-time head of the English Department at St. Olaf College and author of verse collections "Milestones and Other Poems" (1936) and "Second Fall" (1940). In March 1935 Sandburg paid his third visit to St. Olaf College and stayed at Spohn's house; he slept on a lower bunk bed, and noticing the many signatures on the wooden slats above him he pencilled a line from one of his poems and signed it. Similarly, this unique copy bears a Sandburg scrap, a charming 3" X 5" slip (two-hole punched at top) tipped to half-title page of first volume on which Sandburg penned a note to himself in his idiosyncratic shorthand. In full (translation to follow): "Irishmn qrls w Englishmn / 'If y dont hld yr tongue / I'll break yr impenetrable / head & let brains out / yr empty skull.'" (Irishman quarrels with Englishman / 'If you don't hold your tongue / I'll break your impenetrable / head and let brains out / your empty skull.) Nicely penned tight and small in brown ink. The Illinois poet and Lincoln biographer (1878-1967) often filled his pockets with all manner of notes he wrote to himself on odd scraps of paper at hand: Shopping lists (ideas, not groceries!), things to do, unusual words and odd turns of phrase he liked, ideas for poems -- anything and everything that struck his fancy in some way. These private notes penned to himself are extremely scarce and desirable. .

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