Chariot of the Sun

This copy of Chariot of the Sun was published in Paris by the Black Sun Press and represents the first volume of the Collected Poems of Harry Crosby. From the colophon, this volume “is printed in hand-set dorique type … under the direction of and for Caresse Crosby and is strictly limited to twenty lettered copies on Japanese Vellum and fifty numbered copies on Holland Paper together with the sheets for five hundred copies on uncut Navarre.” This volume is one of the copies printed on Navarre paper. The binding is red cloth and white Morocco leather. Morocco leather is almost exclusively made from goat skin, which is what gives the leather that unusual pebbled or grained appearance..

Harry and Caresse Crosby moved in the same circles as—and published editions of—many other popular authors and notables of the time, including Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Douglas Fairbanks, Hart Crane, Salvador Dali, Ezra Pound, and Archibald MacLeish. Harry was also a well-known devotee of sun cults. It is believed that both Lawrence and Crane also had similar interests, and it’s this comradery which likely led Lawrence to write such an extensive introduction to Crosby’s Chariot of the Sun and use the word “sun” over 60 times. It would also help to explain the sun character designed by Lawrence that features as the frontispiece to his own work – Sun.