Alexandria: Kasimath & Iona (Print Shop) (circa 1920). First edition (sic), privately printed by the poet, including Cavafy's best-known poem, the sublime "Ithaka." Presentation copy from the poet to one of his closest friends, inscribed by Cavafy "Eis ton philon logion X. Nomikos, K. P. Kavafy" ["To his learned friend, Ch(ristopher) Nomikos"]. The contents consist of twenty-six poems, some on integral sheets, most on broadsheets attached to stubs; there are some holograph changes to pagination. Most of the broadsheets bear the name of the printer and a date (between 1918 and 1921). The works of the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, in their original manifestations, are among the rarest books of modern poetry. Aside from periodical appearances, Cavafy did not publish his work during his lifetime; only after his death were his poems collected and offered to the public. Cavafy's eccentric method of compiling and distributing his poems has been meticulously described by his translators Edmund Keeley and George Savidis as follows: "whenever a poem appeared in a periodical, the poet would order a set of off-prints primarily for distribution to the select few whom he considered his serious audience, or he would distribute broadsheets in advance of publication, and he would then gather the remnant of these 'printings' into folders, with each new off-print or broadsheet clipped to the last and the title of the latest poem added by hand to a list of contents ... the distribution of these eccentric folders, kept always up to date, became the principal mode for promulgating his work.... By 1917, when the single clip in each folder could no longer bear the load of further broadsheets, Cavafy withdrew some of the earliest poems and had them sewn into booklets that were intended to accompany the ever-expanding folders ... this process was repeated several times, so that at the poet's death in 1933, his 'work in progress', still privately circulated, consisted of two sewn booklets containing a total of sixty-eight poems arranged thematically, and a folder of sixty-nine more recent poems arranged in order of first publication." - Passions and Ancient Days. New Poems by C. P. Cavafy, (N. Y.: Dial Press, 1971), from the Introduction by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis. Although Cavafy annotated his "editions" himself, chiefly their tables of contents and pagination, they were not invariably inscribed by the poet; few of the recorded copies at Harvard or Princeton are inscribed; the NUC does not record any copies of Cavafy's privately printed works. "The unity of divine and human, or past and present, is as real to him as their disparity ... the Greek - or Hellenized - character shines forth: scheming, deluded, gifted, noble, weak. The language survives the reversals of faith and empire, and sharpens the dull wits of the barbarian. The glory dwindles and persists." - James Merrill, "Unreal Citizen", in Recitative (North Point Press, 1986), p. 99. Tall 8vo, 29 numbered pages, printed on recto only with table of contents, in beige printed wrappers. Very fine copy, in a half-morocco folding box.