Medium-sized index card bearing portion of ms. poem by John Shade.
One of the most important American poets of his generation; second in skill,
perhaps, only to his great contemporary Robert Frost, John Shade did not
live to see this work, his final masterpiece, in print. He had just
completed the fair copy when he was murdered, on July 21, 1959, by one
Jack de Grey or Degree, a mental patient (an escapee from the Institute
for the Criminally Insane) who mistook him for the Judge Goldsworthy who
had condemned Grey to prison. As Professor Kinbote (Shade's friend
and editor) has pointed out, the poet "reserved the pink upper line for
headings (canto number, date) and used the fourteen light-blue lines for
writing out with a fine nib in a minute, tidy, remarkable clear hand, the
text of his poem, skipping a line to indicate double space, and always
using a fresh card to begin a new canto." As Kinbote has also noted,
this card contains several references to Maud Shade (1869-1950), aunt of
the poet.
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