Herman Gorter - Verzen - 1890

Verses by Herman Gorter - Amsterdam, W Versluys, [n.d. 1890] - 1st edition - (4) 130 pp - wine-red cloth binding

Good. Some light wear spots on corners and edges, a vertical scratch on the front cover along the edge (see photos). Endpapers and the half-title browned as well as the edge of the title page, interior browned, some spots. Pages uncut. A small tear at the top inside margin of the front cover, about 5 cm). The first endpaper at the top is slightly loose.

Verses (1890) by Herman Gorter is a literary monument and the principal poetry collection of the Movement of the Eighties, through which he introduced sensitivism into Dutch poetry. The contents consist of hyper-individual, impressionistic poems that break with the traditional 19th-century morality and instead aim to capture raw, sensory emotions, ecstatic love, light, color, and sound as purely and directly as possible in language. The book, famous for iconic verses such as "Zie je ik wou graag zijn jou", is considered, in the original first edition from 1890, a rare and sought-after collector's item.

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