Frost, Robert

Proof copies of the first separate edition of the poem A Considerable Speck. 

• Sold as a set of 2 single folio sheets.
• Includes one uncorrected page proof of the 33-line poem, without the printed title page, and with printer’s manuscript corrections and directions in red ink; and one final proof copy, with "Original Proof" printed on title-page.
• Robert Frost (American).
• Both copies are uncut on cream woven paper watermarked "HANDMADE”.
• Laid in a custom green cloth chemise.

Laid in is a photocopy of the handbill titled “The Colonial Society of Massachusetts” detailing the poem’s history: “This poem was written and delivered by Robert Frost at the Annual Dinner on November twenty-first, 1939. It has been printed by Mr. Dard Hunter, Jr. from the first font of type that he has cut and cast himself, and is one of the first pieces of printing. It is on hand-made paper, made by him and his father, an authority on paper, with whom he is associated at the Dard Hunter Paper Museum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology....”

A Considerable Speck was first printed in the Atlantic Monthly in July, 1939. The first separate edition consisted of fewer than 100 copies, according to Crane.