ABSTRACT
Selwyn Gurney Champion’s 1938 Racial Proverbs is just one of the many intriguing titles comprising Stevens’ personal library, now part of the Wal-lace Stevens Archive housed at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. What is perhaps more surprising, however, on opening Stevens’ copy of Racial Proverbs, is that a very slim brochure entitled The Wines of France is tucked inside. 1 The brochure’s cover features a paint-ing depicting dining tables, serving girls—figures reminiscent perhaps of the “demoiselles” of Stevens’ gastronomically inspired “Montrachet-le-Jardin” (CPP 236)—as well as chefs and chateaux; this painting is accom-panied on the back by an artist’s “vinous map” of France which indicates Burgundy—the region to which “Montrachet-le-Jardin” alludes, not least the Grand Cru Le Montrachet itself, one of the most famous vineyards of Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune—as well as the Moselle region to which Stevens refers in another vinous poem, “Certain Phenomena of Sound”: “Slice the mango, Naaman, and dress it/With white wine, sugar and lime juice. Then bring it,/After we’ve drunk the Moselle, to the thickest shade/Of the garden” (CPP 256).
