xvi, 123 pp. Very Good in Very Good dj. "In 1948, Robinson Jeffers submitted the manuscript for The Double Axe and Other Poems to Random House. During the months that followed, a controversy arose between Saxe Commins (his editor), Bennet Cerf (president of Random House), and the author, concerning the political nature of the poetry. The end result was the deletion of ten poems, the changing of several others, and the unusual situation of the publication of a book with a disclaimer from the publisher. What troubled Commins and Cerf about the manuscript was that it revealed so much of Jeffers' stark philosophy. In order to illustrate his idea that man is basically inhuman, the poet used well-known contemporaries in negative examples. Post-war America simply was not ready to accept Jeffers' belief that its own leaders were self-seeking and really no better than Hitler or Stalin."--Jacket copy.