Press Release

The Hand of the Poet: Poems and Papers in Manuscript

A new publication from Rizzoli based on an exhibition at The New York Public Library

"A poet is a poet for such a very tiny bit of his life; for the rest he is a human being, one of whose responsibilities is to know and feel, as much as he can, all that is moving around and within him." -- Dylan Thomas

The New York Public Library and Rizzoli International Publications are pleased to announce the publication of The Hand of the Poet: Poems and Papers in Manuscript. (368 pages, 300 black-and-white illustrations, $40.00.) This book takes its inspiration from the popular exhibition, The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, which was at The New York Public Library's Center for the Humanities at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, from November, 1995 to February, 1997. This handsome volume reflects the extraordinary holdings of The New York Public Library's Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, one of the world's great collections of literary manuscripts. One hundred writers are represented including John Donne, Samuel Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, Mark Strand, and Stanley Kunitz.

The Hand of the Poet provides the reader with a vivid sense of the creative process including the erasures, deletions, and additions in the manuscripts reproduced. The book is organized chronologically and includes biographies and portraits of each poet -- alongside manuscripts of such legendary works as Yeats's "The Wild Swans at Coole" and Auden's "Stop All the Clocks" -- offering often powerful and surprising revelations about the person behind the poem. Each poet's section includes comments by other writers making connections between their lives and works, adding a lively dimension to our understanding of these men and women.

The Hand of the Poet was edited by Rodney Phillips, curator of the collection, with Susan Benesch, Kenneth Benson, and Barbara Bergeron, and includes essays by the poet Dana Gioia. As Dana Gioia notes in his introduction, "The Magical Value of Manuscripts," contact with the handwritten drafts speaks to the same desire that has sparked the explosion of poetry readings occuring today nationwide.

The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, one of the nation's most celebrated collections of rare books and manuscripts, began in 1940 from a gift by Dr. Albert A. Berg, a well-known New York surgeon, in memory of his brother, Dr. Henry W. Berg. The collection covers the entire range of English and American literature, with special emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection is rich in both manuscripts and first editions of Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, and Jack Kerouac, among many others. Among its treasures are the typescript of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, with Ezra Pound's handwritten changes, and the holograph novels, diaries, and letters of Virginia Woolf. Recent additions include the papers of Vladimir Nabokov. Rodney Phillips is the curator of the Berg Collection.

Dana Gioia, poet and author of the influential Can Poetry Matter? has published in many journals and magazines, among them The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and American Book Review.

Selection of comments collected from visitors to the exhibition, The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters:

"It is too difficult to read all these wonderful manuscripts and the commentary at one go -- So a book would be wonderful. My head aches from peering at photos and crabbed handwriting -- what a GREAT show!"

"Superb. Can this be gathered into a book?"

"An amazing exhibition -- compiled with such insight and sensitivity. It would indeed be wonderful to have it in book form, so these insights would not be lost."

"Please produce a book based on this exhibition -- the short biographies are worthy of publication themselves!"

"How exciting to find Emily Dickinson's handwriting completely unreadable! You've added humanity to great towering names."

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