To What Listens (inscribed to Wallace Stegner)
Crete, NE: The Best Cellar Press, 1975. First edition. Softcover.
A standout association copy of this handsome chapbook, inscribed on the front free endpaper: “To the Stegners, with affection, from the Berrys.” In Wendell Berry’s hand. Berry studied with Stegner, "the Dean of Western Writers," as a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and the two became lifelong friends. Berry’s essay "Wallace Stegner and the Great Community" in his collection What Are People For? explains his influence, even before he arrived at Stanford: "I saw plainly that this man, when he was perhaps my age, had known how to write, and that he had known how much better than I did.” Stegner in turn wrote of Berry, “It is hard to say whether I like this writer better as a poet, an essayist, or a novelist. He is all three, at a high level." Stiff textured tan-gray wraps, staple bound. Tan endpapers and stiff green pages. No limitation stated. Includes the poem "To Gary Snyder," another longtime friend. Very good with sunning along the spine and upper margins, more pronounced on rear wrap; small, slight scuff at top of front wrap. A great connection between renowned writers of place, both with a strong moral and critical backbone
. Very good. Item #2018Price: $2,750.00 save 5% $2,612.50