Night: A Fantasy by Lowell S. Hale (1922)

 Night : A Fantasy

Lowell S Hale 

Peter G, Boyle, publisher

New York

(c) 1922

I have been operating under the (false) assumption that what we currently consider to be the "chapbook era", staple bound booklets of poetry of roughly 32 pages, started in the 1940s and was "sparked" by the activities of several pacifists who were detained during the Second World War in Oregon as described in the book Here at the Edge by Steve McQuiddy. 

It's a neat premise, to be sure, since it ties the activities of those pacifists pretty directly to the San Francisco poetry community and the greater world beyond - 

then I discover this book, a 1922 staple bound chapbook - likely not called a chapbook in 1922 - which was published by Peter G Boyle who 2 years later would publish Robinson Jeffers book Tamar and Other Poems as a hardbound book. 

So, I was already leery about the 1940s narrative even though it fit with the story I have been piecing together BECAUSE I had already found what can only be called "chapbooks" by my definition that predate the 1940s. Are they the anomalies or was my time frame always incorrect? 

Since my interest in "modern poetry chapbooks" leads back to and out from San Francisco, I have been viewing anything outside of my own parameters as anomalies. I don't believe there is any one specific title that would be agreed upon as the "first poetry chapbook". 

All that said - I did find a Lowell Sebastian Hale (1896-1939) and the briefest of brief histories of this publisher, Peter G. Boyle, but really not much. Yet, a very early poetry chapbook indeed. 

A Cut Above Life : Poetry by William C. Leikam

 A Cut Above Life : Poetry by William C Leikam

self published

(c)1992

There is almost nothing here but paper. 

I did a search online and there was a book published in 1968 by William C. Leikam entitled Run for the Waves. The publisher was Caravelle Books (New York)

There is also reference to "the Fox Guy" who might also be the same Bill Leikam who was involved in a San Francisco based nature preserve, and this same person - publishing as W C Leikam brought out a book entitled Road to Fox Hollow in 2022. My guess is that all these folks are the same guy. 

Also, it was in a lot I bought from someone who lives in California.