THE PEACOCK'S EGG. Love Poems From Ancient India. Translated by W. S. Merwin and Moussaieff Masson

Berkeley: North Point Press, 1981. Advance Page-Proof Copy. strip bound. A near fine copy. Oblong strip bound page proof measuring 11 x 8 1/2 inches. With an introduction by J. Moussaieff Masson. Publisher's press release laid in. This book is a fruition of a long and successful collaboration between Sanskrit scholar J. Moussaieff Masson and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W. S. Merwin. Over 200 pages of love poems from the Classical Sanskrit (500BC--1000AD), many of which have never before been translated into English. J. Moussaieff Masson has provided for each poem a transliteration from the original, and brief, informative notes. This anthology reflects the art and care with which the translators have selected from the wide range of Sanskrit poetry. They have searched out unusual sources to offer poems from outside the traditional canon of Sanskrit literature, poems by lesser-known, and women poets, and poems which blend love with such other themes as melancholy, poverty, aestheticism, and pure eroticism. 204 pages with index.