Immortalia. An Anthology of American Ballads, Sailors' Songs, Cowboy Songs, College Songs, Parodies, Limericks, and Other Humorous Verses....
New York: Privately Published, 1927. 1st Edition. Octavo, contemporary red leatherette, salmon endpapers, custom paperboard slipcase with paper spine label.
Extra-illustrated copy of this notorious, privately published collection of obscene verse compiled by Boni & Liveright editor and literary critic Thomas Robert (often credited as T.R.) Smith, here credited anonymously as "A Gentleman About Town." Considered the "most sophisticated volume of adult verse ever collected and published in the United States" (The Essential Guide to Erotic Literature, Scheiner, 1996), Immortalia was Smiths second endeavor, after compiling the three-volume Poetica Erotica (1921), an anthology of amatory verse. Due to the exclusion of many works that were considered overly obscene, vulgar, and/or offensive, Smith compiled and privately printed the "leftovers" in this volume, which is purported to have been done with the aid of George Macy, at the time of Macy-Masius and later of the Limited Editions Club. Many of the entries are anonymous, with identified authors including James Whitcomb Riley, Eugene Fields, James Joyce, Don Blanding, D. H. Lawrence, Jack London, Ted Parmentier, and Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated with ten black-and-white plates of erotic drawings from an unidentified external source mounted to tipped-in leaves; with an author and title index and general index. One of 1000 unnumbered copies. Glue residue to upper pastedown from bookplate, not present. Upper hinge tender, offsetting to leaves opposite tipped in plates, light embrowning to textblock throughout. Paperboard slipcase with some edgewear. Very good. Item #12351
$150.00