Who Bought Paris? Hope Mirrlees, the Hogarth Press, and the Circulation of Modernist Poetry

Abstract:This essay explores the early circulation history of Hope Mirrlees's Paris. Published by the Hogarth Press in 1920, Paris was neglected for nearly ninety years, though it has recently been republished and reevaluated. By examining the surviving Hogarth Press order book, the essay shows that Paris, unlike more famous works by T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, rarely reached readers who might have appreciated and advertised its poetic experiments. The essay uses this history to reflect on what sort of poem Paris was in 1920, and what circulation history means more broadly for criticism's recovery of forgotten modernist poems.