Frank Sargeson, James Laughlin & The River
What publication connects Frank Sargeson , Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams? This slight, 32-page pamphlet was gifted to Sargeson, one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers of the 20th century, by James Laughlin ‘the publisher who single-handedly invented the canon of twentieth-century American modernism .’ This is a special copy notable for its rarity as well its associations; it was acquired by the library as part of a box lot at auction in 2018 . James Laughlin was an American publisher and poet whose ‘decisions shaped English-language modernist poetry’ and an occasional publisher of Frank Sargeson. This is not the only copy with famous literary provenance. Copies at the Beinecke Library at Yale University contain presentation inscriptions from Laughlin to Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams. The river by James Laughlin, Norfolk, Conn. : New Directions, 1938, title page, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 813 LAU. Laughlin founded th...