White Mule. By William Carlos Williams. First Edition, First Printing. New Directions. New York, 1937.

William Carlos Williams is a beloved American poet whose imagist and modernist works remain some of the best from the era. Poems like “This Is Just to Say” and “The Red Wheelbarrow” are often assigned reading and sources of inspiration still today. Williams was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. The Poetry Society of America named its premier prize after him. In White Mule, Williams applies his gifts of language to prose. It is a novel following an immigrant family trying to establish themselves in New York at the turn of the century. Through perfect prose, the work explores themes of the American Dream and what it means to be a craftsman, an immigrant, and a member of a nation. White Mule is also the first volume in a trilogy. It remains one of Williams’ most important texts.

This first edition, first printing is in fine condition. In the original oatmeal cloth, fine. Text block fine. In the first-issue dust jacket, very nearly fine with only minor toning to spine.

A fine first edition of White Mule. Scarce.