EZRA POUND (1885-1972) was an expatriate American poet, critic, and translator, and a major figure in the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language.
In 1924, he moved to Italy; during this period of voluntary exile, Pound became involved in Fascist politics, broadcasting radio propaganda that criticized the U.S., Roosevelt, and Jews. As a result, he was arrested by American forces in Italy in 1945 on charges of treason and subsequently incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital for over 12 years. After continuous appeals from writers won his release from the hospital in 1958, Pound returned to Italy where he died, a semi-recluse, in 1972.
His best-known poetical works include RIPOSTES (1912); HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY (1920); PERSONAE, a selection of poems Pound wished to keep in print; and THE CANTOS (1917-69), an unfinished encyclopedic epic. Among his most famous prose works are THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE (1910); LITERARY ESSAYS (1954), the bulk of his best criticism, edited with an introduction by T. S. Eliot; and GUIDE TO KULCHUR (1938). Pound's SELECTED LETTERS (1971) offers an excellent introduction to his literary life and inimitable epistolary style.
Pound's political views and antisemitism ensure that his work remains as controversial now as it was during his lifetime. In 1933 Time magazine called him "a cat that walks by himself, tenaciously unhousebroken and very unsafe for children." On the other hand, Ernest Hemingway declared that "the best of Pound's writing, and it is in the CANTOS, will last as long as there is any literature."
The following books are in PDF format unless otherwise indicated:
== POETRY ==
* A Lume Spento & Other Early Poems (New Directions, 1965)
* Cantos, The (Faber & Faber, 1975)
* Canzoni (Elkin Mathews, 1911)
* Diptych Rome-London: "Homage to Sextus Propertius" and "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" (New Directions, 1994) -- ePUB
* Early Poetical Works (Delphi Classics, 2015) -- ePUB
* Exultations (Elkin Mathews, 1909)
* Lustra and Other Poems (Knopf, 1917)
* Personae (Elkin Mathews, 1909)
* Personae: The Shorter Poems (New Directions, 1990). Revised edition prepared by Lea Baechler and A. Walton Litz. -- ePUB
* Poems 1918-21, including Three Portraits and Four Cantos (Boni & Liveright, 1921)
* ABC of Reading (New Directions, 1960/2010) -- PDF + ePUB
* "America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War" (Peter Russell, 1951). Text file.
* Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony (Pascal Covici, 1927)
* The Art of Poetry, no. 5 (Paris Review, Summer/Fall 1962). Interview by Donald Hall. Text file
* Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry [with Ernest Fenollosa] (Fordham UP, 2008). Edited by Haun Saussy, Jonathan Stalling, and Lucas Klein. -- ePUB
* Ezra Pound Speaking: Radio Speeches of World War II (Greenwood, 1968). Edited by Leonard W. Doob.
* Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (John Lane, 1916)
* Guide to Kulchur (New Directions, 1970)
* Instigations (Boni & Liveright, 1920)
* "Introduction to the Economic Nature of the United States, An" (Peter Russell, 1950). Text file.
* Jefferson-Adams Correspondence (North American Review, No. 244/2, Winter 1937/38)
* Jefferson and/or Mussolini: Fascism as I Have Seen It (Liveright, 1970)
* Literary Essays (New Directions, 1968). Edited by T. S. Eliot
* Make It New: Essays (New Directions, 1934)
* Pavannes and Divisions (Knopf, 1918)
* Polite Essays (Faber & Faber, 1937)
* Selected Prose: 1909-1965 (New Directions, 1970). Edited by William Cookson.
* "Social Credit: An Impact" (Peter Russell, 1951). Text file.
* Spirit of Romance, The (New Directions, 1968)
== LETTERS ==
* Ezra Pound and Japan: Letters and Essays (Black Swan, 1987). Edited by Sanehide Kodama.
* Ezra Pound's Chinese Friends: Stories in Letters (Oxford UP, 2008). Edited by Zhaoming Qian.
* One Must Not Go Altogether with the Tide: Letters of Ezra Pound and Stanley Nott (McGill-Queens UP, 2011). Edited by Miranda B. Hickman.
* Pound/Cummings: The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings (Michigan, 1996). Edited by Betty Ahearn.
* Pound/Ford: The Story of a Literary Friendship - The Correspondence between Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Ford and Their Writings about Each Other (New Directions, 1982). Edited by Brita Lindberg-Seyersted.
* Pound/Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce (New Directions, 1967). Edited by Forrest Read.
* Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941 (New Directions, 1971). Edited by D. D. Paige.
* Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to John Quinn, 1915-1924 (Duke UP, 1991). Edited by Timothy Materer.
== TRANSLATIONS ==
* Awoi no Uye (Quarterly Notebook, June 1916)
* Cathay (Elkin Mathews, 1915)
* Confucian Analects (Peter Owen, 1956)
* Confucian Odes: The Classic Anthology, Defined by Confucius (New Directions, 1954)
* Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti (Stephen Swift, 1912)
* Translations of Ezra Pound (New Directions, 1963)
== ANTHOLOGIES ==
* Early Writings: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 2005). Edited by Ira B. Nadel. -- ePUB
* Poetry and Prose: Contributions to Periodicals, Vol. 1, 1902-1914 (Garland, 1991). Edited by Lea Baechler et al.
* Poetry and Prose: Contributions to Periodicals, Vol. 2, 1915-1917 (Garland, 1991). Edited by Lea Baechler et al.
