THE KENYON REVIEW, special issues for a patron

(Gambier, OH): (Kenyon College), 1979-1982. First Edition. Wraps. Near Fine and quite exceptional, likely unique. The first sixteen issues of the New Series of this important American literary magazine. These are special issues with loose quires laid into the covers. According to a letter from the editors dated 1990, included here, these issues were specially done for a patron who donated $100 per issue in exchange for autographed copies. A later note from an editorial assistant at the time states that the donor actually contributed much more than the stated amount per issue, more like $8000, and that only four years of signed copies were done, thus making this complete and the only known set. Nearly every contribution is SIGNED by the author, a total of more than 200 signatures, including duplicates, and including several winners of the Nobel Prize. Some of the better known authors: Samuel Beckett, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (3), Italo Calvino, Joseph Brodsky (2), Czeslaw Milosz, Harold Pinter, Derek Walcott, Claude Levi-Strauss, Woody Allen (2), James Merrill (2), George Crumb, Amy Clampitt (4), Ursula Le Guin (3), William Gass, Robert Hass, James Dickey (2), Sharon Olds, Rita Dove, W. D. Snodgrass, Joyce Carol Oates (3), Robert Bly, E. L. Doctorow, Barry Hannah, Michael Harper, David Ignatow, Mary Jo Salter, Christopher Logue, Anthony Hecht (2), Guy Davenport (2), Robert Pinsky, Harold Bloom, Tom Disch, Patricia Hampl, John Hollander, Alfred Corn, Brad Leithauser (2), etc. Two issues are missing a leaf with writings by Gunter Grass in one and Derek Walcott in the other. We suspect that these were never returned by the authors.