The Collected Poems 1956-1998. The Collected Prose 1948-1998. Both Volumes Translated and Edited by Alissa Valles. Two Volu.

New York::: Ecco Press,,, 2007, 2010... First Printings of the First U.S. Edition. Fine tight unread copies in Fine bright unclipped dust jackets. These two volumes bring together Herbert's collected poetry and prose. The poetry volume includes: Chords of Light, Hermes, Dog and Star, Study of the Object, Inscription, Mr. Cogito, Report from a Besieged City, Elegy for the Departure, Rovigo and Epilogue to a Storm. The prose volume includes his four books of nonfiction including: Labryinth on the Sea, Still Life with a Bridle, The King of the Ants, and Barbarian in the Garden. Herbert was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist, a member of the Polish resistance movement, Home Army (AK), during World War II. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled String of light was issued in 1956), soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his works to official Polish government publications. He resumed publication in the 1980s, initially in the underground press. Although Herbert's purpose as a poet and the subjects of his writing are serious, he mixes humor and satire effectively. "The most distinctive quality of Herbert's imagination," Laurence Lieberman writes in Poetry, "is his power to invest impish fantasy, mischievously tender nonsense, with the highest seriousness. His humorous fantasy is the armor of a superlatively healthy mind staving off political oppression. Fantasy is an instrument of survival: it is the chief weapon in a poetry arsenal which serves as a caretaker for the individual identity, a bulwark against the mental slavery of the totalitarian church and state."