Up & Down & Around: A Publisher Recollects the Time of His Life [INSCRIBED TO A GLENWAY WESCOTT]

(Autobiography) CANFIELD, Cass

New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1971. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. 6 3/8 X 9 1/2 Inches. [xiii] 272 PP. Near Fine / Very Good. Item #9487

"From the earliest days I have known and admired Glenway Wescott; among his books The Grandmothers is his best novel." - Cass Canfield [PG 194]

Stated "First Edition" on the copyright page. Original price of $8.95 on front flap. Signed and inscribed "To Glenway - with affectionate regards, Cass / Sep '71" on the FFEP. Canfield was Glenway's editor at Harpers and many believe one of the reasons Glenway never reached the next level of literary greatness. "He (Glenway) had too formal a relationship with Cass Canfield" [Rosco, 2002, p 213]. AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY. Light rubbing and wear to spine ends and edges. Some rubbing and tear to jacket edges.

Glenway Wescott (1901–1987) was a novelist, poet, and essayist, best known for his novels The Grandmothers and The Pilgrim Hawk. Associated with the expatriate literary community in Paris in the 1920s, Wescott was part of the circle that included Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. Though his fiction output slowed later in life, he remained an important literary figure and a respected voice in American letters.

Monroe Wheeler was a visionary curator, publisher, and cultural connector whose life bridged the worlds of art, literature, and design in the 20th century. Born in Illinois in 1899, he rose to prominence not just through formal training, but through a cultivated network of artists and writers across Europe and the United States. Before his influential tenure at the Museum of Modern Art, he co-founded Harrison of Paris, a small press that produced exquisitely designed books in collaboration with literary giants like Gertrude Stein and Colette. At MoMA, Wheeler revolutionized the role of exhibition design and museum publications, transforming them into vehicles of both scholarship and aesthetic experience. His personal and professional life intertwined with key figures of modernism, and through his quiet but forceful vision, he helped define the cultural language of modern art in America.

Together, Wheeler and Wescott formed a lasting personal and intellectual partnership that spanned over six decades. They lived and traveled widely, particularly in Europe, often in the company of artists, writers, and thinkers. Their relationship was a rare example of a long-term same-sex partnership that endured in a time of widespread societal disapproval, and they left behind a legacy of cultural influence through both their individual work and their shared life.

Price: $300.00