SEXTON, Anne (1928-1974). Two typed letters signed (''Anne Sexton'') to Walter Kerr (1913-1996), accompanying her inscribed photostatic reproduction of typed drafts of The Death Notebooks and An Awful Rowing Toward God, Weston, Massachusetts, 31...

SEXTON, Anne (1928-1974). Two typed letters signed ("Anne Sexton") to Walter Kerr (1913-1996), accompanying her inscribed photostatic reproduction of typed drafts of The Death Notebooks and An Awful Rowing Toward God, Weston, Massachusetts, 31 January 1973.

Approx. 122 pages in total (the letters to Kerr comprising three pages), 275 x 200mm, letters and manuscripts bound together in one leatherbound volume.

Sexton sends "raw, unworked poems, all first drafts, written in a frenzy of despair and hope." Her first letter to writer and critic Walter Kerr, enclosing first drafts of her two final works of poetry, The Death Notebooks and An Awful Rowing Toward God, begins: "Here are two manuscripts of poems which I send as a strange sort of gift," adding that she wants "nothing" from him," "no blurb, no introduction." Rather, she had been stirred by his "kind, gracious, and insightful review" of her work and thought her poems might be "welcomed" by him. The draft of The Death Notebooks bears her inscription, "For Walter Kerr," on the title leaf, and includes an original typescript poem, "Jesus Walking." The second letter serves as a cover note addressed to "you few who will read these first drafts" and notes that the poems had been written over the course of the month and finished the day before. "I explain this so you will understand they are raw, unworked poems, all first drafts, written in a frenzy of despair and hope. [...] I apologize for the inadequate words. As I said in one of the poems: I fly like an eagle but with the wings of a wren." The present drafts of Sexton's manuscripts bear numerous differences to the published versions, including many verses – and even poems, such as "Coffin Building," "Here, David, is Your Sun," and "The Baby" – that were later excised. The Death Notebooks was brought out by Houghton Mifflin in 1974 and An Awful Rowing Toward God posthumously in 1975. Provenance: Walter Kerr (inscription) – by descent to the consignor.