The Lives of The Most Eminent English Poets

Updated September 5, 2026

Samuel Johnson. 1896. Bears the bookplate of famous avant-garde poet Robert Duncan. Robert Edward Duncan (January 7, 1919 – February 3, 1988) was an American poet and a devotee of Hilda "H.D." Doolittle and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black Mountain College. Duncan saw his work as emerging especially from the tradition of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and D. H. Lawrence. Duncan was a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance.

More lots in this auction

• The Face of Edgar Allan Poe
• Thucydides Translated into English
• Political Speeches and Debates of Abraham Lincoln
• Le Juif Errant or The Wandering Jew
• Revolt in the Desert
• Posada Printmaker to the Mexican People
• The Communistic Societies of the United States
• Ladder of Years

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