Chronicles of Yaddo

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. First Edition. Rare. The De Vinne Press (printed, not published). Copy No. 35 of an unknown number. Introduction by Katrina Trask's husband, Spencer Trask. Signed by Spencer Trask. Vellum paper. Velvet end papers. Locking clasp. Written by Katrina Trask after two of her children died tragically, 3 days apart - Spencer, Jr., age 5 and Christina, age 11. In 1888, Katrina Trask suffered from diphtheria. A doctor allowed Christina and Spencer Jr. to visit her. Both contracted the infectious disease and died within two days of each other, but Katrina Trask recovered. A year later, the final Trask child died three days after birth. A few years prior to these tragedies, their first son, Alan, had died at the age of 4 and a half.

Spencer Trask (September 18, 1844 – December 31, 1909) was an American financier, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He was the director of several railroads and the president of the Edison Illuminating Company of New York. Beginning in the 1870s,Trask began investing and supporting entrepreneurs, including Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb and his electricity network. In 1896 he reorganized The New York Times, becoming its majority shareholder and chairman. Katrina Trask was an author and philanthropist.

Most notably, the Trask legacy is rooted in the large parcel of land where they lived and which they bequeathed to the future writers and artists of the world. Since first hosting residencies for creatives in 1926, the Yaddo grounds have launched the inspiration for some of the world's greatest works. As a result of the tragedy of the couple's four children passing away while still in their young years, and with no heir to leave their possessions to, Spencer and Katrina in 1900 bequeathed the lands to future artists, to come, to stay, and to create. This was completed with the financial assistance of philanthropist George Foster Peabody. The first artists arrived in 1926, and Yaddo is recognized throughout the world as a premier artists' community. Yaddo, the name of the estate, is said to have been coined by the Trask's young daughter, Christina, who amused her father by her mispronunciation of the numerous dark spots on the lawn caused by the towering trees' shadows.

It was in 1946 when 21-year-old aspiring writer Truman Capote stayed at Yaddo and slept in Katrina Trask's former room, where he would lie awake listening to the blowing wind, the creaking doors, and the faint cry of the bats circling the towers above. When he emerged from the artists' colony a few months later, he had the makings of his debut novel, "Other Voices, Other Rooms."

It was at West House – one of the near-two-dozen homes and working spaces on the 400-acre Yaddo estate, where William Carlos Williams crafted portions of his epic poem "Paterson," Patricia Highsmith invented the characters for her work "Strangers on a Train," and where Sylvia Plath, dividing her time between sleeping in the first-floor bedroom and working in the studio room upstairs, penned a half-dozen works inspired by her surroundings - "The Manor Garden," "The Burnt-Out Spa," and "Yaddo: The Grand Manor," among them.

The results of the Trasks' legacy have been historic. John Cheever once wrote that the "forty or so acres on which the principal buildings of Yaddo stand have seen more distinguished activity in the arts than any other piece of ground in the English-speaking community and perhaps the world". Collectively, artists who worked at Yaddo have won 61 Pulitzer Prizes, 56 National Book Awards, 22 National Book Critics Circle Award, a Nobel Prize, and countless other honors. Many books by Yaddo authors have been made into films. Visitors from Cheever's Day include Milton Avery, James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Aaron Copland, Philip Guston, Patricia Highsmith, Langston Hughes, Ted Hughes, Alfred Kazin, Ulysses Kay, Jacob Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Katherine Anne Porter, Mario Puzo, Clyfford Still, and Virgil Thomson.

A unique and rare item.

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