Lot 309: An unusual association copy inscribed to R. Buckminster Fuller

[FULLER, BUCKMINSTER & MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER]

BENET, WILLIAM ROSE. Moons of Grandeur. New York: George Doran, 1920. First edition, extensively annotated and signed on the cover and at front and back in 1939 (see note). Publisher's cloth-backed boards, housed in a cloth slipcase. 7 1/2 x 5 inches (19 x 13 cm); 176 pp. Dampstain and wear, a small window cut in a preliminary leaf to reveal the name below, sold as an association copy.

This volume, while published in 1920, was extensively annotated and inscribed by Benét and Christopher Morley for Buckminster Fuller apparently on Valentine's Day 1939 at the Gotham Book Mart in New York. The color annotations at front are likely in the hand of Benét and those in pencil on the dedication page by Christopher Morley who has signed "Chris." On the cover is the annotation in crayon "Ex Libris/R.B.F./1939." The rear blank is signed at at the foot in pencil by Buckminster Fuller (still signing as Richard Buckminster Fuller), William Rose Benét, and Christopher Morley with each providing the year they graduated from university (or in Fuller's case expelled from Harvard?). Above that is a quotation about their fathers with a list of the three men's fathers' names with their college associations. A strange but interesting and quite early association copy worthy of future research.