transition

An International Quarterly for Creative Experiment 

Number 16-17, June 1929

edited by Eugene Jolas

Issue No. 16-17.  Paris:  transition, 1929  

Softback is overall in VERY GOOD- condition.

• Cream wraps have photo illustration and green ink title. 
• Wraps show some wear, staining, bumping, heavy edgewear.  Corners are bumped, frayed.  See photos. 
• Spine has green and black text dimmed and is faded, with chipped ends.  See photos.
• Binding is secure.
• Illustrations are bright and clear.  See photos.
• Owner's inscription on half-title page.
• Publisher's advertisements at front and back of issue. 
• Interior is tanned, exhibits edgewear, some small closed tears, creased corners.  See photos. 
• Inside pages have a few pencil marks. 
• Text block edges are untrimmed. 
• PS2026.0624

328 pages. 6.5 x 9 inches

Issue Number 16-17 of transition, a landmark avant-garde modernist literary magazine launched in Paris in April, 1927.  Double Spring-Summer issue.  Publisher's cream paper wraps with cover by Gretchen Powel and title in green ink.  Wraps show age and wear, with bumping and a closed tear at the foot, staining to opening edge.  Interior is tanned, with an owner's name at half-title page and a couple of marginal marks.  Spine is chipped at head and foot; the binding is secure and square.  A Very Good Minus copy of this early, original issue.

This issue of transition, edited by Eugene Jolas in Paris, was a double issue for Spring-Summer 1929.  Yet another landmark edition of the influential modernist magazine, this issue notably includes Samuel Beckett’s first published short story, "Assumption," and his debut critical essay.  It also features the "Revolution of the Word" manifesto, a modernist proclamation signed by writers including Jolas, Hart Crane, Kay Boyle, and Harry Crosby.

This copy also offers a rather interesting association.  Neatly inked on the half-title page is the name "John Widdicombe, University of Va."  John Sherwood Widdicombe was an author, architect, and Assistant State Supervisor for the Virginia Writers' Project in the 1930s.  A graduate of the University of Virginia and Oxford, he was primarily responsible for writing the architectural descriptions and arranging illustrations for historic books like Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion.  Before his work with the Federal Writers' Project, however, Widdicombe had a connection to the modernist literary world.  Widdicombe met author Paul Bowles when they were students at U. Va., and the two maintained a correspondence in which (among other topics) Bowles enthused about meeting Gertrude Stein in Paris.  Widdicombe and Bowles' paths may well have crossed again when Widdicombe was at Oxford.  

Edited and published in Paris. 

Please see photos. More photos available upon request.

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