The Publication Timeline of The Cantos
Three Cantos [Ur-Cantos]
I. Poetry 10.3 (June 1917): 113-21. The Poetry Foundation.
II. Poetry 10.4 (July 1917): 180-88. Bartleby.com.
III. Poetry 10.5 (August 1917): 248-54. The Poetry Foundation.
Three Cantos of a poem of Some Length. In Lustra. Am. ed. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1917.
Chosen excerpts from the Lustra Cantos were reprinted in Future:
“Passages from the Opening Address in a Long Poem” – February 1918. The Cantos Project.
“Images from the Second Canto of a Long Poem” – March 1918. The Cantos Project.
“An Interpolation taken from the Third Canto of a Long Poem” – April 1918. The Cantos Project.
Three Cantos. In Quia Pauper Amavi. London: The Ovid Press, 1919. [Republication of the version in Lustra.] Free online.
Canto IV. The Fourth Canto. London: Ovid Press, October 1919.
Reprinted in the The Dial (June 1920) and in Poems 1918-1921. Boni and Liveright, 1921.
Three Cantos. The Dial. LXXI.2 (August 1921): 198-208. [The Fifth Canto - The Sixth Canto - The Seventh Canto].
The Fourth Canto - The Fifth Canto - The Sixth Canto - The Seventh Canto. Poems 1918-1921. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1921. [Canto VI will be considerably edited before republication in A Draft of XXX Cantos (1930). The original version is reproduced in Bush Genesis 310-313.]
Eighth Canto. The Dial LXXII.5 (May 1922): 505-509. [reworked and repositioned as Canto II in A Draft of XXX Cantos, 1925].
Malatesta Cantos (Cantos IX to XII of a long poem). Criterion 1.4 (July 1923): 363-84.
Two Cantos. Transatlantic Review. I.1 (January 1924): 10-14. Contents: One Canto [Canto XIII] - Another Canto [Canto XII, first half]
A Draft of XVI Cantos. Initials by Henry Strater. Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1925.
Cantos XVII-XIX. This Quarter. I.2 (Autumn/Winter 1925/1926): 5-16.
Part of Canto XX. Exile. 1 (Spring 1927): 1-6.
Part of Canto XXVII. The Dial. LXXXIV.1 (January 1928): 1-3.
Canto XXII. Dial. LXXXIV.2 (February 1928): 113-117.
Part of Canto XXIII. Exile. 3 (Spring 1928): 28-31. [first 34 lines omitted]
A Draft of the Cantos 17-27 of Ezra Pound. Initials by Gladys Hynes. London: John Rodker, September 1928.
Cantos XXVIII, XXIX, XXX. Hound & Horn. III.3 (April-June 1930): 358-375.
A Draft of XXX Cantos by Ezra Pound. Paris: Hours Press, August 1930.
First American edition: A Draft of XXX Cantos by Ezra Pound. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 15 March 1933.
First British edition: A Draft of XXX Cantos by Ezra Pound. London: Faber & Faber, 14 September 1933.
Three Cantos. [XXXI-XXXII-XXXIII]. Pagany. II.3 (July/September 1931): 43-53.
Canto XXXIV. Poetry. XLII.1 (April 1933): 1-10.
Canto XXXVIII. New English Weekly. III.24 (28 September 1933): 564-5. Reprinted in the Harvard Advocate CXX.4 (Feb. 1934): 24-26.
Canto XXXVII. Poetry XLIII.6 (Mar. 1934): 297-305.
Canto XXXVI. Harkness Hoot IV.4 (April 1934): 26-29.
Canto XLI. New English Weekly VI.4 (8 November 1934): 85-6.
Canto XXXVI. The Criterion. XIV (1935): 204-207.
Eleven New Cantos XXXI-XLI. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 8 October 1934.
First British edition: A Draft of Cantos XXXI-XLI by Ezra Pound. London: Faber & Faber, 14 March 1935.
Second American issue: Eleven New Cantos XXXI-XLI by Ezra Pound. Norfork Connecticut: New Directions, summer 1940.
Canto XLV. Prosperity. IV.3 (Feb. 1936): 44.
Canto XLVI. New Democracy, VI.1 (March 1936): 14-16.
Canto XLVI. New Directions in Prose and Poetry. Norfolk, Ct., 16 November 1936.
Cantos XLII-XLIV. Criterion. XVI.64 (April 1937): 405-423.
The Fifth Decad of Cantos. London: Faber & Faber, 3 June 1937.
First American edition: The Fifth Decad of Cantos. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 29 November 1937.
Second issue: The Fifth Decad of Cantos. Norfork Connecticut: New Directions, summer 1940.
Cantos LII-LXXI.London: Faber & Faber, 25 January 1940.
First American edition: Ezra Pound Cantos LII-LXXI. Norfork Connecticut: New Directions, 17 September 1940.
Canto LXXII. Presenza di F. T. Marinetti. [lines 9 through 35 of Canto LXXII omitting line 18]. La Marina Repubblicana. II.2 (15 January 1945): 2.
Canto LXXIII. Cavalcanti - Corrispondenza repubblicana. La Marina Repubblicana. II.3 (1 February 1945): 7.
Canto LXXXIV. Quarterly Review of Literature. III.2 (1946): 126-129.
Canto LXXVII. Rocky Mountain Review. X.4 (Summer 1946): 179-189.
from Canto LXXX. Poetry. LXVIII.6 (September 1946): 310-321.
Canto LXXXIII. Yale Poetry Review. 6 (1947): 3-8. [Ezra Pound issue].
Canto LXXVI. Sewanee Review. LV.1 (January/March 1947): 56-67.
The Pisan Cantos. New York: New Directions, 30 July 1948.
First British edition: The Pisan Cantos. London: Faber & Faber, 22 July 1949.
1948 – The Cantos. First collected edition. New York: New Directions, 30 July 1948. [includes cantos 1-84 with the exception of the Italian Cantos, 72 and 73.] The collection was printed from the initial letterpress plates of the individual volumes (PCH 155).
Thirteen American printings of this edition between 1948 and 1968.
The 1951 printing introduced a few corrections and additions in the Chinese History Cantos, especially in canto 53.
1950 – Ezra Pound: Seventy Cantos. London: Faber & Faber, 1950. [First collected British edition and the first produced by offset technology, with corrections made by Pound. Includes 71 cantos.] There will be five Faber editions of The Cantos between 1950 and 1968, which is the last Faber independent printing, containing cantos 1-109.
1954 – The Cantos of Ezra Pound. [Second British collected ed., 18 June 1954; Cantos I-LXXXIV. An Errata list with 11 changes was added. Incorporated in the 2nd impression, in 1957 (Eastman 6).]
Canto 85. Hudson Review. VII.4 (Winter 1954/55): 487-501.
Canto 86-87. Hudson Review VIII.1 (Spring 1955): 13-27.
Canto 88-89. Hudson Review. VIII.2 (Summer 1955): 183-204.
Canto 90. Meanjin. XIV.4 (Summer 1955): 488-491.
Section: Rock Drill de los cantares. Milano: All’insegna del pesce d’oro, September 1955
First American ed.: Ezra Pound. Section: Rock Drill de los cantares. New York: New Directions, 30 March 1956.
First English ed.: Ezra Pound. Section: Rock Drill de los cantares. London: Faber & Faber, 15 February 1957.
1956 – The Cantos (1-95). New York: New Directions.
Canto 96. Hudson Review IX.1 (Spring 1956): 7-19.
Canto 97. Hudson Review IX.3 (Autumn 1956): 387-398.
Canto 99. Virginia Quarterly Review. XXXIV.3 (Summer 1958): 339-354.
Canto 98. L'Illustrazione italiana. LXXXV.9 (September 1958): 34-39.
Canto C. Yale Literary Magazine. CXXVI.5 (December 1958): 45-50.
CI de los cantares. European. XII.6 (February 1959): 382-384.
CII de los cantares. Listen. III.2 (Spring 1959): 1-3.
Thrones 96-109 de los cantares. Milano: All’insegna del pesce d’oro, 7 December 1959.
First American ed.: Ezra Pound. Thrones 96-109 de los cantares. New York: New Directions, 7 December 1959.
First English ed.: Ezra Pound. Thrones 96-109 de los cantares. London: Faber & Faber, 4 March 1960.
1960 – The Cantos of Ezra Pound. London: Faber.
Fragment from Canto 115. Threshold 17 (Spring 1962): 20. [25 lines, out of which only five are printed in CXV as published in D & F. Six of the lines appeared separately as Canto 120.]
Two Cantos. Paris Review 28 (Summer/Fall 1962): 13-16. Contents: from Canto 115 [21 lines, all but four differ from the version in Threshold] - Canto 116.
from Canto CXIII. Poetry CI.1/2 (October/November 1962): 95-96.
from Canto CXI. Agenda II.11/12 (March/April 1963): 1-2.
1964 – The Cantos of Ezra Pound. [Cantos 1-109]. Third British collected ed. London: Faber, 1964. Reprinted in 1968.
1965 – The Cantos (1-95). Second American collected ed. New York: New Directions, 1965.
Aus Canto CXIV. Text + Kritik 10/11 (October 1965): 48-50. [from Canto CXIV with German translation by Eva Hesse]
Canto CX. Cambridge Mass.: As Sextant Press, 1965.
from Canto 115. Agenda. IV.2 (October/November 1965): 3.
[Two cantos] Niagara Frontier Review. 1 (Fall 1965/Spring 1966): 29-36. Contents: Canto CX-Canto 116.
Cantos 110-116. New York: Fuck You Press, 1967.
Selected Cantos of Ezra Pound. London: Faber & Faber, 1967
American issue: Selected Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1970.
Canto CXIV. Stonybrook I.1/2 (Fall 1968): 1-3.
from Canto CXIII. New Yorker XLIV.41 (30 November 1968): 64.
Drafts & Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII. New York: New Directions, 26 April 1969.
British issue: Ezra Pound. Drafts & Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII. London: Faber & Faber, 23 February 1970.
1970 – Third American collected ed. The Cantos of Ezra Pound 1-117. New York: New Directions, 1970. [1st American offset printing, containing more than a hundred changes from previous editions].
1971 – The Cantos of Ezra Pound. 2nd printing. New York: New Directions.
1972 - The Cantos of Ezra Pound. 3rd “revised” printing [includes Canto CXX and adds two corrections].
POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS
1973 – Cantos LXXII & LXXIII. Washington D.C. The Estate of Ezra Pound, June 1973.
1973 – The Cantos. 4th printing. New York: New Directions.
1975 - The Cantos. 5th printing. New York: New Directions; London: Faber. [Faber takes over the sheets from New Directions to create a uniform edition. Two recorrections of previous changes (Eastman 2).]
Prove e frammenti dei Canti CX-CXVII. Bilingual edition, English-Italian. A cura di Carlo Alberto Corsi con una nota introduttiva di Giovanni Raboni. [Quaderni della Fenice 81]. Milano: Guanda, 1975.
1976 – The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Fourth British collected ed. London: Faber & Faber, 1976. [The sheets taken over from the third American collected ed. (5th printing of 1975) but without Canto CXX].
1977 – The Cantos. 6th printing. New York: New Directions.
1979 – The Cantos. 7th printing. New York: New Directions.
1981 – The Cantos. 8th printing. New York: New Directions. London: Faber.
1983 – The Cantos. 9th printing. New York: New Directions.
1986 – The Cantos. 10th printing. New York: New Directions. [Includes The Italian Cantos 72 and 73 for the first time, as well as the suppressed passage of canto 52.]
1987 – The Cantos. 4th collected edition. London: Faber.
1989 – The Cantos. 11th printing. New York: New Directions.
1991 – The Cantos. 12th printing. New York: New Directions.
1991 – Variorum Edition of ‘Three Cantos’ by Ezra Pound: A Prototype. Ed. Richard D. Taylor. Bayreuth: Boomerang Press.
1993 – Canto XCII. Ezra Pound’s English translation of the canto initially published in Italian. Paris Review (fall 1993). Included in the 13th printing of The Cantos New York: New Directions 1995.
1995 – The Cantos of Ezra Pound. 13th printing. New York: New Directions, 1995. [Includes not only the original Italian Cantos 92 and 93, but also the English translation of canto 92 made by Ezra Pund and published in the Paris Review, 1993.]
1999 – Pound, Ezra and Dorothy Shakespear Pound. Shakespear’s Pound: Illuminated Cantos. Introduction by Omar S. Pound. Nacogdoches, TX: LaNana Creek Press [Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing]. Cantos XXVIII-LI.
2015 – Pound, Ezra. Posthumous Cantos. Ed. Massimo Bacigalupo. Manchester: Carcanet Press.
2015 – Pound Ezra. Canto IV [fragment with variants]. Richard Dean Taylor, 2015. Web.
REFERENCES
Bush, Ron. The Genesis of Ezra Pound’s Cantos. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976. Print.
Eastman, Barbara. Ezra Pound’s Cantos: the Story of the Text 1948-1975. Orono: National Poetry Foundation, 1979.
Gallup, Donald. Ezra Pound. A Bibliography. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1983. Print.
Pound, Ezra. Poetry & Prose: Contributions to Periodicals. Eds. Lea Baechler, A. Walton Litz and James Longenbach. 11 vols. New York: Garland, 1991. Online at The Pound Society website.
Pound, Ezra. The Cantos. Thirteenth printing, New Directions, 1995.
