SIGNED BY JACKIE KENNEDY, AGE 10
(KENNEDY, Jacqueline) UNTERMEYER, Louis, editor. The New Modern American & British Poetry. New York and Chicago: Harcourt, Brace, 1939. Octavo, original brown cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
Revised edition of Untermeyer's anthology of modern Anglo-American poetry, used by Jacqueline Kennedy, neé Bouvier, as a fifth-grader at Chapin School and signed in print: "Jacqueline Bouvier Class 5 1939."
"After kindergarten, Jackie started first grade at Miss Chapin's School on East End Avenue in New York. One of her teachers, Miss Platt, thought Jackie was 'a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of the devil.' At times she did get into mischief and would be sent to the headmistress, Miss Ethel Stringfellow, who wrote on her report card: 'Jacqueline was given a D in Form because her disturbing conduct in her geography class made it necessary to exclude her from the room'" (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library). While today Jackie Kennedy is perhaps best known for her impeccable poise, her Chapin classmates and teachers almost uniformly remembered her as a bright troublemaker. This anthology, marked "Class 5" suggesting Chapin School use, may have survived in such exemplary condition largely due to its subject matter (English literature) and its particular interest to Kennedy. Indeed, Kennedy was a devoted reader with a love of authors ranging from Margaret Mitchell to Byron. Her teachers were struck by her unique gift for language and her mother even wondered if she would have a future in writing. Ultimately, Kennedy wrote or contributed to several books and worked as an editor both before and after her time in the White House, beginning as a junior editor at Vogue and ending as an associate editor at Doubleday. Untermeyer's classic anthologies were published as early as 1900; dozens of revisions followed, most updated with new poetry (this edition includes contemporary poetry by Kipling, Lawrence, Chesterton, Housman, and many others). Red wax pencil notation above signature. Occasional pencil and pen markings to Table of Contents. Contemporary pen signature, partially crossed out. Pencil shelf numbers.
Light rubbing to extremities. A handsome near-fine signed copy.