MARIA

[Queens, NY]: Salamander Editions [Joseph Cornell], 1954. Very good.. Scarce first edition, privately printed by Cornell in an edition of about 100 copies and given away to his friends as presents, augmented with a collaged element to the last page. This work was inspired by nineteenth-century opera singer Maria Malibran-Garcia and was produced with the same precision and care Cornell brought to his other productions. It is in many ways a Cornell work in book form, not only due to the collaged element present, but also in the appropriation of text, the use of a decorative headpiece from yet another book, and focusing on one of Cornell's signature obsessions.
A box of leftover copies of MARIA was discovered with Cornell's estate and are seen on the market with some regularity. These are identifiable, however, by a lack of any collage element in the rear of the book, no blue tissue (which according to his diaries, Cornell labored to find just the right color of), and their generally fine condition (having been stored in a box for years). This copy, however, is one of those augmented and circulated by Cornell himself -- and genuinely scarce as such. OCLC locates one holding (Utah, though another lies among the Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell Papers at Yale) and we find only one additional among museum collections (the Smithsonian). A curious entry in a curious career and an early and under-appreciated artist's book, rare in this state altered by Cornell. Original printed stapled wraps. Original blue tissue still present. Small collaged element to last page (postcard detail of skyline of lower Manhattan). Mild rubbing, some toning. "From Joseph Cornell" neatly penned in green ink to front cover in an unknown contemporary hand.