Books and Manuscripts

Paris, Saturday, ca. September, 1924. One sheet, 10 5/16 x 8 1/4 in. (262 x 209 mm). One-page autograph letter, signed by Ezra Pound to American poet Sara Teasdale: "Madam 'Sara Teasdale,' I am sorry I can not be at home today at 330. I will try to get to you on on (sic) the phone or pass your hotel sometime...the afternoon. from Ezra Pound."; with original mailing envelope signed by Pound, "Sarah Teasdale Filsinger." Creasing to letter from original folds; creasing along right and bottom edges from when framed; scattered tears along edges, with some minor loss in top corners, affecting one letter.

A scarce letter from modernist poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972) to American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). While on a trip through Europe in the late summer of 1924, Teasdale unsuccessfully attempted to visit the expatriate Pound, who was then living in Paris. Shortly before her departure, Teasdale had asked her friend Harriet Monroe, editor and founder of Poetry magazine, and a close friend and supporter of Pound's, whether, "Ezra Pound and I could hit it off? I might drop him a line casually, if you think so." (William Drake, Sara Teasdale: Woman & Poet, p. 224). Teasdale's attempted meeting is unusual, considering she was known to be a critic of Pound as a poet and person. She first met him in 1911 in New York at the Poetry Society, where she later described him to Louis Untermeyer as a "wobbly blond youth," and later commented about Monroe's "unfortunate adoration of Ezra." The meeting apparently never occurred, and by the beginning of October, Pound had moved his family to Italy.

Sara Teasdale was one of the most popular American poets of the early 20th century, remembered for her lyrical works, characterized by its simplicity and use of classical forms, and the intimate and autobiographical nature of her verse. She published her first work, Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems, in 1907, that was followed by Helen of Troy, and Other Poems in 1911, and Rivers to the Sea, in 1915. She married Ernst Filsinger in 1914, and moved to New York City in 1915. In 1918 she won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize (which became the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) and the Poetry Society of America’s Prize, for Love Songs (1917). She published three more works before her death in 1933, Stars To-night: Verses New and Old for Boys and Girls (1930); Dark of the Moon (1926); and Flame and Shadow (1920). Her final work, Strange Victory, was published posthumously, in 1933.

One of possibly two known letters from Pound to Teasdale. The other, dated 1916, is in the Sara Teasdale Collection at the University of Virginia Library.