BURGESS, Gelett [ed.]

The Lark Number IX [January 1896] [SIGNED]

San Francisco: William Doxey, 1896. First Edition. First printing. Octavo (19.5cm). Stapled pamphlet on tan bamboo paper, printed in black on one side of sheets; 16pp; 3 plates plus cover illustration. With silhouette portraits of "Les Jeunes," the nickname for the main contributors, with Frank Gelett Burgess' signature in pencil beneath his portrait. Lightly toned, partly unopened: Near Fine.

Single issue of perhaps the most whimsical and iconoclastic of the "little magazines" that appeared in the 1890s. The Lark was dedicated to "sincerity, spontaneity, and gaiety," and featured nonsense verse and illustrations printed on thin (and frequently brittle) bamboo paper, with a deliberately informal aesthetic (Chielens, American Literary Magazines 208-9). With contributions from "fin-de-siecle San Francisco's most promising writers and artists," it helped to establish the city as "the literary center of the Pacific Coast" (209, 212). More commonly found in the bound two-volume issue.

Price: $175.00

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