NO RESERVE Williams (Tennessee).- Women: A Collaboration of Artists and Writers, first edition, signed presentation inscription "For Jordan [Massee] and Paul [Bigelow] with love at Xmas, Tenn[essee Williams] and Frank [Merlo] to endpaper, 11 mounted plates, loose as issued, some very light marginal toning, small patches or browning to endpapers, photograph of Williams and Merlo loosely inserted, cloth-backed stiff wrappers, dust-jacket designed by Paul Rand, some light chipping and creasing to head and foot with neat tape repairs to verso, [Crandell B15], 4to, New York, Samuel M. Kootz, [1948].

⁂ A lovely association copy of this rare publication.

Samuel Kootz held the exhibition "Women" at his gallery in 1947 featuring works by Picasso, Braque and other gallery artists. The present work joined 11 of the works exhibited to original essays by 11 writers including Williams, Jean-Paul Sartre and William Carlos Williams.

Inscribed to Paul Bigelow (1905-88), playwright and one of Williams' closest friends, and Jordan Massee, cousin and close friend of Carson McCullers. Williams visited Massee at his family home at Macon, Georgia and there was introduced both to the larger-than-life William Jordan Massee senior, who formed the basis of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof's Big Daddy, and to the clandestine world of young gay men in Georgia who's secretive and at times tortured lives would provide a theme that ran through much of Williams' work. For more on Jordan Massee see lots 57, 59 and 320. Frank Merlo (1922-1963) was Williams' partner of 15 years, representing by far the most stable relationship Williams experienced. Merlo's death in 1963 was a crisis for Williams and marked the start of steady and tragic decline.