Ginsberg, Allen | Siesta in Xbalba, the dedication copy

Ginsberg, Allen

Siesta in Xbalba, and Return to the States. As Published by the Author, July 1956, near Icy Cape, Alaska, at the Sign of the Midnight Sun

Mimeographed folio (204 x 164 mm). Instances of worming affecting text, lightly browned, a few stray stains and creases, one marginal puncture. Stapled and vertically folded as issued in original self wrappers; some soiling and ink stains, staples rusted with upper wrapper loose but holding at lower wrapper.

Scarce first edition of Ginsberg's second work—one of approximately 53 copies that Ginsberg personally mimeographed on the USNS Sgt. Jack J. Pendleton off the coast of Alaska.

Presentation copy, inscribed to Karena Shields, the dedicatee: "For Karena Shields, with old affection - From Allen + with thanks for refuge. Aug 4, 1956 Wainwright, Alaska."

Ginsberg, embracing a sojourn of spiritual renewal and exploration, wrote the present long poem in 1954 while staying with Shields near the Mayan ruins of Uxmal. Shields, a historian and anthropologist, had been raised in Mexico since the age of three and, aside from a brief stint playing Jane in early Tarzan adaptations, had written several works on the Mayans. She invited Ginsberg to stay on her cocoa plantation during his travels and was "just the sort of person Allen needed to meet in order to see the real Mexico" (Miles). During their time together, both weathered financial instability and were essentially stuck together until Ginsberg received checks that could fund the next leg of his journey.

The present lot was Ginsberg's appreciation for Shields's kindness and hospitality. On 4 August 1956, the same date as the inscription to Shields, Ginsberg wrote to his publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti: "Enclosed find [...] thirteen copies of a mimeographed pamphlet of the Mexican poem I made up here on ship last weekend. Keep one yourself and put the other dozen on sale at 50¢ each if you think you can sell them ... I made up another forty and am keeping them or sending them out as whim strikes me" (Morgan).

According to Rare Book Hub, only five copies of this work have ever appeared at auction.

REFERENCES

Miles, Ginsberg: A Biography; Morgan, ed., I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997

PROVENANCE

Karena Shields (presentation inscription to upper wrapper) — thence by descent to present owner