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CARSON, A., Economy of the Unlost. (Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul Celan). Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1999. 147p. Cloth. With Author's dedication on title page. Small personal library mark and name on free endpaper. The ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of Keos was the first poet in the Western tradition to take money for poetic composition. From this starting point, Anne Carson launches an exploration, poetic in its own right, of the idea of poetic economy. She offers a reading of certain of Simonides' texts and aligns these with writings of the modern Romanian poet Paul Celan, a Jew and survivor of the Holocaust, whose "economies" of language are notorious. Asking such questions as, What is lost when words are wasted? and Who profits when words are saved? Carson reveals the two poets' striking commonalities. 'This is a remarkable, gripping, and moving book, itself a kind of extended prose poem, crafted by Carson between the excerpts of the two poets and her amazing readings and juxtapositions thereof. Like all of Carson's writing, it is sui generis, combining meticulous scholarship with the sensibility and style of a poet. I have always felt it was a privilege simply to be allowed to read Carson's work, and this manuscript is perhaps the best thing she has done.' (Leslie Kurke, University of California, Berkeley). From the library of the late Sir Kenneth James Dover. € 55.00 (Antiquarian)