An Elucidation: printed in transition

An Elucidation by Gertrude Stein. Offprint from: transition, no. 1. [Paris:] transition, April 1927. 8° (195 x 144mm).

First edition, in original buff-coloured stapled yapped wrappers. 16pp. Minor crimping to top fore-edge yapped wrappers. Pages uncut. Usual age-toning. A Very Good copy of this fragile, ephemeral publication.

This scarce offprint was issued to correct the mis-printings to the text of the article that had just appeared in the first issue of the magazine "transition." (Wilson A10). Stein insisted on the printing of this supplementary pamphlet, but only enough copies to supply subscribers were printed; these were laid-in to copies of the first printing of the magazine issue. The pamphlet begins with an apology by Elliot Paul, the co-editor of "transition", stating: "Since, unfortunately, the version of Miss Gertrude Stein's 'An elucidation' printed in the April number of Transition, while containing the correct words, presented them in the wrong order (through an inadvertence in the printing establishment), the text has been rearranged and is offered as a supplement" (p. 1). A key piece of ephemera for any collector of the grammatically-obsessed and inventive Gertrude Stein.