The Spice-Box of Earth

The Spice-Box of Earth, Cohen, Leonard. Published by McClelland & Stewart Ltd, Toronto, 1961. First paperback edition, printed simultaneous with first hardcover edition. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 99pp. with Illustrations by Frank Newfeld. Card covers with French flaps, front cut-out with facial portrait of Leonard Cohen backed on olive green wrapper, red patterned end papers. Contents are in fine, unmarked condition; card covers have light diagonal creases lower corner front and back; light rubbing to edges.

The first edition of The Spice-Box of Earth sold out in less than three months. From the Canadian Encyclopedia: "The Spice-Box of Earth was the volume which established Leonard Cohen's reputation as a lyric poet; it remains the most popular single volume of his verse. The language is rich, sensuous and beautiful, but many of Cohen's darker themes - victimization, loss, cruelty - are nonetheless present. The poems deal with the role of the poet, with his inheritance of the Jewish tradition, and of course with love. Among the best-known poems are 'As the Mist Leaves No Scar' and the lovely 'For Anne', which Cohen nominates as his own favourite poem. But perhaps the most searching poem in the volume is the darkly symbolic "You Have the Lovers', which sets out in concise form the themes later explored in Cohen's novel Beautiful Losers."