RARE PORTUGUESE POETRY
[TORGA, Miguel, pseud.] ROCHA, Adolpho Correia da.
Abismo. Poemas.
[Coimbra, “Atlantida”, 1932.]
8vo, pp. 27, [5]; a very good copy, uncut and unopened in the original printed wrappers, some spotting to wrappers and first and last leaves only; in a folding cloth box.
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Abismo. Poemas.
First (and only) edition of one of the very rare early collections of poetry of Miguel Torga, published under his own name while he was still a medical student in Coimbra.
Adolpho Correia da Rocha (1907-1995) is now recognised – under the pseudonym he began using in 1934 - as one of the greatest Portuguese writers of the 20th century. He was born into a simple village family in Portugal, and at the age of 13 he was sent to Brazil to work on his uncle’s coffee plantation. His uncle noticed the boy’s talent, and paid for him to complete his schooling in Brazil, and in 1925 when Rocha returned to Portugal, his uncle financed his medical studies at the University of Coimbra. He graduated in 1933, and became a doctor of otolaryngology. During his time at university he had begun to publish small collections of poetry at his own expense, all now very rare: Ansiedade appeared in 1928, followed by Rampa (1930), Tributo (1931), and the present collection in 1932. Torga’s first prose collection, Pao Ázimo, was published in 1931.
OCLC cites copies at Harvard, the Getty Center, and Hamburg; not in the British Library catalogue.
