PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935) - photo 1
PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935) - photo 2
PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935) - photo 3

PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935)

Lot 123
13.02.2025 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 10 080
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1362928
Lot 123 | PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935)
English Poems. Lisbon: Olisipo, 1921.
Very rare first edition in the original wrappers, with presentation slips inscribed by the author. The first volume contains a revised edition of Antinous, describing the homosexual relationship between Antinous and the Emperor Hadrian, first published in 1918, followed by the first edition of Inscriptions. The second volume contains Pessoa’s Epithalamium. The copyright page reads: 'An early and very imperfect draft of Antinous was published in 1918. The present one is meant to annul and supersede that, from which it is essentially different.' Pessoa published only one book in Portuguese during his lifetime, though he published numerous Portuguese poems in periodicals and left, unpublished at his death, an enormous quantity of work for which he is justly regarded as one of the great poets of modern times. Pessoa lived in South Africa from 1896-1905, where his father was the Portuguese consul in Durban, and was bilingual. In 1921 Pessoa used a small inheritance to found his own small press, Olisipo, which in December of that year issued this work. Pessoa wrote a large number of poems in English, some of them in the guise of early heteronyms, precursors of the later, modernist work in Portuguese. The sometimes startlingly frank content of the earlier English poems may well have prevented their wider dissemination in British circles. On the back cover of each volume is the price 'One and sixpence net', so it seems that Pessoa intended to put them on sale in Britain, although there is no evidence that this in fact happened.

2 volumes, quarto (234 x 175mm). Woodcut printer’s device on first leaf, label tipped in below with the same device in both vols. (light dust soiling to verso of first leaf of first vol, title a little dusty in second, with very light dust soiling to upper margins). Contemporary printed publishers wrappers with woodcut fleuron at centre (both vols. rebacked, slightly dust soiled and chipped at edges); in red morocco slip case, spine richly gilt. Provenance: labels in both vols. inscribed in Pessoa’s hand 'With the Publisher’s compliments. Lisbon - December, 1921' — Barry Humphries (1934-2023; bookplate).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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13.02.2025 – 13.02.2025
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PESSOA, Fernando (1888-1935)
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£5 000

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