Icy Cape, Alaska: published by the author,, July 1956. One of few copies remaining in private hands, inscribed by Ginsberg First edition, sole impression, one of an estimated 53 copies, the author's second publication, and a renowned Ginsberg rarity, one of few copies remaining in private hands. This copy is signed twice by Ginsberg - once in his contemporary 1956 hand, and additionally inscribed "This copy circa 1986 belongs to Donald R. Reisfield / Allen Ginsberg / Rutgers March 16 / AH", both on the first text page. Siesta in Xbalba is a truly rare Ginsberg item, self-printed and self-published in the summer of 1956 while aboard a Navy ship off the coast of Alaska, before he returned to San Francisco and realized his literary destiny and fame as the author of Howl, which was published in November 1956 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights. Upon printing this work, Ginsberg sent 13 copies to his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, instructing him on 4 August 1956 to "[k]eep one yourself and put the other dozen on sale at 50 cents each if you think you can sell them. Give the proceeds to Mike McClure for us for Moby Magazine. You can advertise them as a charity type shot for Moby. I made up another forty and am keeping them or sending them out as whim strikes me" (Morgan p. 5). Ginsberg sent one such copy to his father, Louis, who responded encouragingly, "It's very interesting with cinematic flashbacks of scenes and people. There is entangled in your lines a nostalgia for the past and for ruins that make a pulpit for mortality. Congratulations!" (Miles, p. 206). Siesta in Xbalba is Ginsberg's second publication, preceded only by a printing of Howl in May 1956 in 25 copies. The poem, written during his travels in Mexico in 1954, is dedicated to Karena Shields, a historian and anthropologist whom Ginsberg met in the Palenque ruins during this trip. Shields lived on the cocoa plantation on which the ruins stood, and had written a number of scholarly papers on Mayan culture, and a popular book, Three in the Jungle (1944). Shields had lived in Palenque since the age of three and had discovered a number of lost cities in the area, meaning that "she was just the sort of person Allen needed to meet in order to see the real Mexico and when she invited him to visit her cocoa finca, he readily accepted" (Miles, p. 156). Siesta in Xbalba is a considerable rarity in the Ginsberg canon. Around 53 copies were produced - Ginsberg cites 53 in the above letter to Ferlinghetti, though 52 in another letter to Kerouac, which his bibliographer Morgan cites. The true figure is certainly not far removed, give or take a copy or two. Of these 33 are now held institutionally, and many others must have been lost leaving precious few available to collectors. A bare handful are recorded at auction or in the trade. This copy was sold in the Parke-Benet sale, "Modern and Avant-garde First Editions", 14 April 1970, lot 67; a priced catalogue is included, and original auction house envelope. Small quarto (204 x 165 mm), pp. 22. Mimeographed typescript, printed on both sides, stapled as issued. Together with auction catalogue (see note). Housed in a black quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Slight rusting around staples, faint soiling to initial and terminal page, minor orange crayon mark to former, notwithstanding an excellent copy of a scarce and fragile production. Miles, Allen Ginsberg: Beat Poet, 1989; The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg 1955-1997, 2015; Morgan A2.
