The Poetry of Greek Tragedy [INSCRIBED TO A GLENWAY WESCOTT]

(Literature) LATTIMORE, Richmond

New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966. First Paperback Edition. Original wraps. 5 3/8 X 8 Inches. 157 [11] PP. Near Fine. Item #9579

Signed by the famed translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Stated "First Harper Torchbook Edition" on the copyright page. Signed and inscribed "Glenway Wescott / from Richard Lattimore / something gave me the idea / that you might possibly be / interested in this" on the first page.

Additional annotation in pencil by Lattimore on at least one other page of text. From the personal collection of Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler (via Clark Dobson collection).

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: $100.00