Mirabai Versions [Signed & inscribed copy/ Jill Johnston Library]

An unpaginated staple-bound 8vo with drawings by Ellen Lanyon, this copy is inscribed by Robert Bly to the late great Jill Johnston (1929-2010), cultural, literary and dance critic, memoirist, radical lesbian feminist and champion of the avant-garde, and it bears her distinctive blue ink-stamp on the title page which reads “Write first. then live.” J.J. We can be fairly certain that the inscription was made on the occasion of Johnston’s 1991 visit to Bly’s Minnesota farm where the critic went to investigate the Iron John phenomenon. While the two got on well, Bly couldn’t have known that Johnston would bring the then burgeoning “men’s movement” under intense scrutiny & call it’s intentions nothing new, but rather a continuation of patriarchal norms. See “Why Iron John is No Gift to Women, NY Times, 23 February 1992. Spotting t front cover & a long sunning band to rear; interior spotless.