The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem with a portrait of the diarist by Robert Phelps.

PULITZER PRIZE Winner for Music.  - Ned ROREM (b. 1923).

The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem with a portrait of the diarist by Robert Phelps. New York: George Brazilier, 1966. Octavo (8 1/8 x 5 ½ in; 206 x 140mm). Plates. Original light blue cloth, blocked in gilt on upper cover and spine, dust-jacket (slight discoloration to jacket). Provenance: probably Muriel Rukeyser (1913 – 1980, fine lengthy inscription by the author to “Dear Muriel - / If I show good taste, you / taught this to me – if I have / talent, you perceived it first, / if I have learned to love, / it is because you have more / heart than most woman - / You were only a child, but / from you, and because of you, / I patterned my life – you / were my fixed star – and / I bring you my diary as a / reminder of all I owe my dear friend, my sister, my mentor - / Ned R. /  6/6/66” ). 

Inscribed presentation copy of a nice example of the first edition composer Ned Rorem’s clear-eyed description of his life in Europe and Morocco between 1951 and 1955. Rorem made use of Muriel Rukeyser’s words in perhaps his greatest work, his Aftermarth song cycle of 2002, and she does seem to be the most likely recipient of this work – but this is not confirmed.

His heartfelt inscription in the present work, has elements which were echoed by poet William Meredith who described poet, playwright, biographer and activist Muriel Rukeyser as “a very amazing human being and any traces of honesty in my life come from having seen how beautifully honest she was in administering her life and her poetry without any separation—you couldn't get a knife between the two things with her. The real influence was her human model of what a poet could be” (Paris Review).

Rorem “is an American composer and diarist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1976 for his Air Music: Ten Etudes for Orchestra. Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana in 1923 … In 1966 he published The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem, which – together with his later diaries – has brought him some notoriety. He is open about his and other men's sexuality, describing his relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noël Coward, Samuel Barber, and Virgil Thomson, and outing several others. Rorem also had a short affair with writer John Cheever.

Rorem has written extensively about music as well. These essays are collected in the anthologies Setting the Tone, Music from the Inside Out, and Music and People. His prose is much admired, not least for its barbed observations about such prominent musicians as composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. Rorem has composed in a chromatic tonal idiom throughout his career, and he is not hesitant to attack the orthodoxies of the avant-garde.” (Wikipedia).