“The elegance and intimacy of the original... Leopardi truly emerges in these pages like a living being. A loving act of artistic re-creation.”
Leopardi’s Cantos
Translated by A. J. Spatz
Hardcover & paperback, 536 pp.
Online lecture (83 mins., Italian Cultural Society of DC)
Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) is Italy's greatest poet since Dante, and one of the first modern thinkers of the West. The Cantos is his unfinished masterpiece, whose grim lyricism fuses a rare poetic genius with an unwavering moral conscience.
Rooted in the ancients and the Enlightenment, Leopardi developed a lucid directness that influenced creative minds from Nietzsche to Calvino, from Beckett to Fellini. His poems have the presence of sculpture, speaking with a passionate honesty that only becomes more relevant every day.
This edition presents the original dedications and prefaces to the Cantos for the first time in English, and its extensive notes include several early sketches not previously published outside Italy. The scrupulous, deft rhyming translation by Aaron Jacob Spatz recreates the urgency and artistry of these masterful poems, at last securing the "untranslatable" Leopardi a vital presence in the English language.
Librotango vols. 1-2
Translated by Jake Spatz
Hardcover & paperback, 160 pp. each
Vol. 1 - Vol. 2
Librotango presents the lyrics of the tango in singable translations, matching the rhythms and melodies of the original songs. Selected and expertly translated by Jake Spatz, these songs represent the core of the tango songbook. Included are detailed notes on the origins and backgrounds of each selection, revealing a thriving world of popular entertainment, and showing how the tango came to speak for generations of dancers and aficionados around the world for more than a century.
Volume 1 kicks off the series with "Milonguita," one of the most influential tangos in the genre, whose words and images echo through the songbook. Among many other giant hits, this volume includes "Mano a mano" (Fair and Square), "Madreselva" (Honeysuckle), "Cambalache" (Hockshop), "Nostalgias," "Gricel," "Tinta roja" (Red Ink), and "Malena."
Volume 2 adds twenty-six more songs to this catalogue of tangos in English, including more huge songs of the genre like ”Yira, yira” (Hustlin’), “Griseta,” “Volver” (Return), “Duelo criollo” (Dagger Duel), “Barrio de tango” (Old Tango Barrio) and more. Finely tailored to follow the sheet music, and made for singing as much as for sense, these faithful versions honor the tango poets and celebrate their achievement.
Expertly Restored
Edited by Erdnase specialist Marty Demarest
Designed by Jake Spatz
Hardcover & paperback, 240 pp.
Erdnaseum Edition eBook
The mysterious. The one and only. The classic. The Expert at the Card Table.
Restored to its 1902 text, our celebrated first-edition replica of this card magic bible preserves all the original's quirks and errors. Plus you get enlarged, remastered illustrations, culled from the crispest and clearest sources. And the must-have Index puts all the techniques you're looking for right at your fingertips.
This is the one that will become your working copy, your reference text, your travel companion, all in one edition. This handsome, durable paperback stands at the front of every magic collection, and is made to last.
James Thomson :
Complete Poems
Buy Now
“A sterling poet, if ever one sang.”
The Complete Poems
Edited by A. J. Spatz
Paperback, 594 pp.
For the first time, the complete poems of James Thomson (B. V.) appear together in a single volume, arranged according to the poet's intentions. This edition includes Thomson's terrifying classic "The City of Dreadful Night," his wonderful translations of Heine and Béranger, the powerful unpublished piece "I Had a Love," and much more.
This is the only complete edition of Thomson's poetry. It includes the three books he prepared for publication himself—The City of Dreadful Night (1880), Vane's Story (1881), and A Voice from the Nile (1884)—followed by thirty years of uncollected verse arranged chronologically. This edition also reprints for the first time Thomson's many fragments of verse translation which he wrote for reviews of Goethe and others, and the complete version of "The Pilgrimage to Saint Nicotine" along with an annotated illustration.