Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The Summer–Fall 1967 issue of The Paris Review — No. 41 — is one of the most consequential single issues in the magazine's history, and that is a high bar for a publication that had already accumulated an extraordinary archive of literary interviews by 1967. The Art of Fiction XL with Vladimir Nabokov is the anchor. Nabokov in 1967 was at the absolute apex of his English-language literary reputation: Lolita had made him famous and controversial in equal measure, Pale Fire had confirmed his standing among serious critics as one of the most formally inventive novelists writing in any language, and Ada was still two years away. His relationship with interviewers was famously controlled — he famously refused to speak extemporaneously in interviews, preferring to answer questions in writing on index cards, a practice that produced responses of unusual precision and wit but required interviewers willing to accept his terms. The result, published here as Art of Fiction XL, is a document of Nabokov on his own craft, his own influences, and his own aesthetic convictions, delivered in the form he chose and preserved in the publication that had made the literary interview a serious art form. For collectors and researchers focused on the full run of The Paris Review and its landmark interview series, the Paris Review archive at OriginalMagazines.com provides essential context across the publication's history.
The poetry roster in this issue is, by any measure, one of the strongest single-issue poetry lineups The Paris Review published during the 1960s — and that is saying something. John Ashbery contributing "Spring Day" and "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape" places two poems from the period immediately surrounding his pivotal 1966 collection Rivers and Mountains in this issue. James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, Ron Padgett, Barbara Guest, Clark Coolidge, and Frank O'Hara's circle are all represented — the concentration of New York School poets and their immediate affiliates in a single issue is not accidental. Tony Towle's "Sunrise: Ode to Frank O'Hara" carries particular weight: O'Hara had died in July 1966, just a year before this issue's publication date, and a poem addressed to him in a magazine that had published his own work appears as a direct act of elegiac attention within the community he had helped define. The cover by Lucio Fontana — the Italian artist known for his slashed and punctured canvases, whose work was at the center of international avant-garde art conversation in the late 1960s — and photographs of Nabokov by Gisèle Freund, one of the great portrait photographers of the twentieth century, give this issue a visual distinction that matches its literary weight. Collectors building a picture of the literary and cultural landscape of the late 1960s will find the 1967 magazines collection at OriginalMagazines.com a valuable resource across publications from this extraordinary year.
The fiction contributors deserve equal recognition. Edward Hoagland, whose career as one of America's finest essayists and nature writers was just beginning to take its mature shape in the late 1960s, appears here with "The Witness." Kenward Elmslie, a poet and librettist deeply embedded in the New York School, contributes fiction. The overall effect of this issue's table of contents is of a publication operating at the precise intersection of the American literary avant-garde and the serious mainstream — not underground, not academic, but occupying exactly the independent critical space that The Paris Review had carved out since its founding in 1953.
About the Publication
The Paris Review was founded in Paris in 1953 by a group of young American writers including George Plimpton, Peter Matthiessen, and Harold L. Humes, with Plimpton serving as editor for decades. Its editorial identity was built around three complementary commitments: publishing new fiction and poetry from emerging and established writers without the commercial constraints of mass-market publications; conducting the long-form literary interviews collected under the "Art of Fiction," "Art of Poetry," and related series titles, which became among the most important primary sources in twentieth-century literary history; and reproducing visual art with a seriousness that treated it as an equal partner to the written content. Published as a quarterly in an oversized format, it cultivated an audience of serious readers, writers, and literary scholars across the United States and internationally. Issues from the 1960s represent the publication at a specific creative peak, when its interview archive was accumulating the figures that would define its lasting reputation and its poetry pages were documenting a generation of American poets at a formative moment.
Key Highlights Inside
- The Art of Fiction XL: Vladimir Nabokov — one of the most celebrated interviews in the Paris Review series, conducted with Nabokov's characteristic written-response format, documenting his aesthetic philosophy, influences, and craft at the height of his English-language reputation between Pale Fire and Ada.
- Photographs of Vladimir Nabokov by Gisèle Freund — portrait photography by one of the twentieth century's most significant documentary photographers, whose subjects across her career included James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Walter Benjamin.
- Poetry by John Ashbery including "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape" — a poem from the creative period immediately surrounding his landmark 1966 collection Rivers and Mountains, appearing alongside work by James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest, Ron Padgett, and Clark Coolidge in one of the strongest New York School–adjacent poetry lineups the magazine published in the decade.
- Tony Towle's "Sunrise: Ode to Frank O'Hara" — published approximately one year after O'Hara's death in July 1966, a direct elegiac response within the community he had helped shape, appearing in the publication that had been part of that community's literary infrastructure.
- Cover by Lucio Fontana — the Italian avant-garde artist whose slashed and punctured canvas works were among the most discussed in international contemporary art at the time of this issue's publication, giving the issue a visual identity consistent with its literary ambition.
- Fiction by Edward Hoagland and Kenward Elmslie, frontispiece by William Pène du Bois, and Notes on Contributors on page 184 — a complete editorial apparatus confirming the issue's full presentation as a substantial literary and artistic document.
Condition & Rarity
The noted condition describes a very good copy with minor edge wear consistent with age, no mailing label, and a plastic protective sleeve. For a literary quarterly now nearly sixty years old, very good condition with only minor edge wear represents preservation well above the norm — Paris Review issues from the 1960s were produced in relatively modest print runs for a readership that valued them as literary objects, but the passage of decades and the vulnerability of their paper stock to humidity and light means that clean, structurally intact surviving copies are less common than the publication's reputation might suggest. The absence of a mailing label is the most significant condition attribute: no-label copies retain the Fontana cover art in its original, unobstructed state, which for an issue whose cover is an artwork by a major figure in postwar Italian art is a meaningful preservation factor. Very good condition indicates a copy with intact pages, sound spine, and a cover that has retained its printed surface without significant loss or scuffing — the configuration that serious collectors of the magazine's 1960s run consistently prioritize.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Paris Review issues from the 1960s in very good no-label condition are among the more rewarding finds for collectors of serious literary magazines, and No. 41 with the Nabokov interview and the Ashbery, Schuyler, and Koch poetry is one of the decade's landmark issues by any measure. If this Summer–Fall 1967 issue has already been claimed, the full Paris Review archive at OriginalMagazines.com is the best place to search for other issues from the Plimpton era and the magazine's classic interview series. Collectors building a broader picture of the literary and cultural landscape of 1967 will find the 1967 magazines collection rich with period material worth exploring alongside it.