The Shadow-Eater

Editions of The Shadow-Eater

1915 Edition (Albert and Charles Boni)

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1917 (Wilmarth Publishing)

The 1917 printing is substantially similar to the 1915 edition. The only changes are the date and publisher name on the title page, and an additional copyright note on the verso stating:

Copyright, 1917
Assigned to WILMARTH PUBLISHING COMPANY.

The 1917 publication was announced with the following entry in Publishers’ Weekly on Jan. 27, 1917, p. 302 and Feb. 3, 1917, pp. 384, 411, and 417:

De Casseres, B: The shadow-eater. N. Y., [F.Shay] ’15c. 59p. D bds. $1

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1923 Revised Edition (American Library Service)

The 1923 edition includes a new preface by Don Marquis, a fellow columnist in the New York papers and popular magazines for which De Casseres frequently wrote. The revised edition also contains a frontispiece illustration by Marius de Zayas (first published in Camera Work, January 1910), and an illustration after “The Dead Who Live” (p. 28) by Wallace Smith.

Minor text changes occur throughout, including new line and stanza breaks, capitalization or emphasis changes, and punctuation. A handful of word changes are made as well. Specific text changes are indicated on the page for each individual poem (see Contents below).

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Contents

Title	1915/1917	1923
The Protagonist	7	15
Tantara! Tantaro!	8	16
The Tongueless One	9	17
The Shrine in the Mist	10	18
My Comic Perspective	12	19
The Peeper	14	21
The Circle-That-Looks-Like-a-Line	15	22
My Divine Hate	18	24
The Rotted Ideal	20	25
The Vision Malefic	21	26
Dying	22	27
The Dead Who Live	23	28
Exvolved	24	29
The God of Negation	25	30
Godward	26	31
Beyond Sense	27	32
The Cynic of Nazareth	28	33
De Profundis	29	34
On a Marriage	30	35
The Syncopated Spinner	31	36
Love and Sleep	32	37
The Watcher	33	38
Face to Face	34	39
My Shadows	35	40
The Vigil	36	41
The Closed Room	37	42
Half-Seen	38	43
The Long Vigil	39	44
Prophetic	40	45
Resurrection Night	41	46
Bird of the Night	42	47
The Cleft in the Wall	43	48
The Truant	45	49
Change and an Ending	46	50
The Quest in the Flesh	47	51
In the Adytum	49	52
The Way Out: BIO	50	53
Moth-Terror	51	54
My Holy Lust	52	55
The Overone	53	56
The Ultimate	54	57
The Sleeper	55	58
The Alleys of Eld	56	59
Love the Destroyer	57	n/a
Rejection	58	60
The Spear of the Great Spurning	59	61

1907 Bound Manuscript of The Shadow-Eater

In 2024, a redditor posted to /r/OldBooks images of a bound manuscript version of The Shadow-Eater that they acquired. Based on the images posted, the bound version was apparently assembled by Carlo De Fornaro. According to the table of contents, it does not appear to contain the first poem included in the printed version, “The Protagonist,” which is a verse dedication to Fornaro himself.

Image 1 shows a green and brown leather cover with a maroon plate labeled:

THE SHADOW EATER
POEMS BY
B. De CASSERES

Image 2 shows two open pages with text:

Image 3 shows a two-column table of contents:

Image 4 shows several illustrations:

• A pasted clipping of a printed illustration of De Casseres by Marius de Zayas from The Bang, October 28, 1907
• Profile and portrait sketches of De Casseres, presumably by Fornaro, pasted from another notebook

Image 5 shows page 10 of the manuscript, containing the first part of the poem “The Peeper.”

Image 6 shows a drawing by Fornaro on an unnumbered page of the manuscript with the writing:

CdeFornaro.
March 01
Mexico.
The Shadow-Eater.
28 Calzada Chapultepec.

Reviews of The Shadow-Eater

• Various (Syndicated) – Poems of a Shadow Eater
• November 1915 – Reviews: Benjamin De Casseres – The Poetry Journal
• February 1917 – Stops of Various Quills – The Dial
• November 1918 – Notes on New Book – The Dial
• May 1923 – Recent Books in Brief Review – The Bookman
• August 1923 – Books in Brief – Poetry

Additional Resources

• Carlos De Fornaro’s manuscript copy of The Shadow-Eater with sketches via Reddit (selected pages)
• The Shadow-Eater at HathiTrust (1915, Albert and Charles Boni)
• The Shadow-Eater at Project Gutenberg (1917, Wilmarth Publishing)
• The Shadow-Eater at Internet Archive (1917, Wilmarth Publishing)