Collected Translations: Italian French Spanish Portuguese Softcover - 1985

St. Paul, Minnesota: A New Rivers Abroad Book, New Rivers Press, 1985. Softcover. Near Fine. 8vo 8" - 9" tall. Jacques Hnizdovsky. Good-looking, structurally sound softcover, bound simply in pictorial wraps, light foxing to fore- and top-edges. 150 pp. including notes and a full index. Augented also by the woodcuts of Jacques Hnizdovsky. SIGNED by the poet, being inscribed to his friends Elsie and Richard, 23 February 2002. Born in 1918, son of a professional soldier, graduate of Washington University, then a student also at Columbia University and eventually Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. The Poetry Foundation dot org web-site entry about him notes: "Known for the diverse form and content of his work, and celebrated for the careful craft and antic humor of his verse, William Jay Smith was the author over 50 books of poetry for adults and children . . . He served in the US Naval Reserves during World War II, and afterward met and married the poet Barbara Howes. . . . [H]e taught and lectured at many universities, including Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, where he worked for over a decade. He served in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1960 to 1962. He also developed a reputation for his translations of French, Russian, Hungarian and Swedish poets." Richard Purdy Wilbur, the signee, was a United States poet laureate, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a celebrated literary translator himself, and a beloved college professor, best friend and colleague to William Jay Smith, two Poets Laureate.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.