On the Roof of Ikaros

First published in To Vima tis Kyriakis | 30-12-2012
During his lifetime, C.P. Cavafy never published his poems in book or collection form, although he accepted proposals for their publication in both Greek and English. He broke new ground by publishing poems in the magazines and newspapers of the time and by privately printing the famous single-sheet leaflets that often formed impromptu collections and were given as gifts to friends.

The first organised collection, the canon comprising 154 poems, was published for the first time in Alexandria after his death, under the care of Rika Segopoulou, then wife of Alekos Segopoulos, Cavafy’s heir and executor of his will.
It is precisely this collection that was published by Ikaros as a ‘second edition’ in 1948 under the title K.P. Cavafy, Poems, introducing Cavafy to the Greek public for the first time. In keeping with the bibliophilic custom of the time and of Ikaros, two different print runs were produced. The first, comprising 310 copies numbered from 1 to 300 and from I to X on white paper, and the second, comprising 2,270 copies on chamois paper from the Athenian Paper Mill, numbered 301–2,500 and 2,501–2,570. Copies I to X and 2501–2570 are out of print. Dimensions 30 x 22.5 cm, 204 pages.
In 1958, the Cavafy Canon was republished by Ikaros in 4,000 numbered copies.
In 1963, a milestone in the history of Ikaros, the first standardised ‘popular’ edition of C.P. Cavafy’s poems in two volumes (Vol. I 1896–1918, 144 pp., 20.5 x 13.5 cm, and Vol. II: 1919–1933, 136 pp., 20.5 x 13.5 cm) with notes and exemplary literary editing by G.P. Savvidis. On the cover, Cavafy from a copperplate engraving by Yannis Kefallinos. This is the edition that definitively established Cavafy in the consciousness of the Greek public. In 1966, one of Ikaros’s finest and most emblematic editions was published.Cavafy’s 154 poems with pictorial commentaries by Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika. In a large format (29.5 x 22 cm) and on heavy paper, it remains even today a model of the fusion of poetry and painting... The standard two-volume edition was reprinted 12 times by photolithography until 1984, when G.P. Savvidis presented a new edition of the canon in a single volume, with verse numbering and a cover by Alexandros Isaris. At that time, the copyright for the 154 poems of the canon was released, and many editions were published—illustrated, simple, luxurious, some excellent and some terrible and slapdash. However, the public has come to love and trust the two-volume standard edition through which they first encountered Cavafy; thus, in 1991, G.P. Savvidis and Ikaros presented the “new edition”, a two-volume edition identical in appearance to that of 1963 but with new editorial notes and commentary. This edition has been reprinted and remains in circulation to this day. (10th reprint 2009).
Meanwhile, in 1968, G.P. Savvidis began to make use of the impeccably organised Cavafy Archive, and under his editorial supervision, the Unpublished Poems 1882–1923 were published, with a cover by the engraver A. Tassos. The Archive came into the possession of G.P. Savvidis following the death of Alekos Segopoulos in 1969, and the exploitation of parts of it continued in an exemplary manner by him until his death in 1995, and continues to this day through his collaborators, and under the care of Manolis Savvidis, who, in addition to publications in Greece and abroad, played a decisive role in the modern utilisation of the archive by digitising a large part of it, creating websites and enriching its content. Thus, to date the following have been published: *The Renounced: Poems and Translations 1886–1898*, edited by G.P. Savvidis, cover by Alexandros Isaris, Ikaros 1983, The Hidden Poems (new edition of the Unpublished Works), edited by G.P. Savvidis, Ikaros 1993, The Unfinished Poems 1918–1932, edited and annotated by Renata Lavagnini, Ikaros 1994, and the first volume, The Prose 1882–1931, edited by Michalis Pieris, Ikaros 2003. Ikaros will soon publish the Cavafy–Forster Correspondence, edited by Peter Jeffreys and translated by Katerina Gika, and the publication of the Dictionary edited by Michalis Pieris is eagerly awaited.
The Cavafy collection at Ikaros is accompanied by in-depth studies and essays by G. P. Savvidis, John P. Anton, Giorgos Vrisimitzakis, I. A. Saregiannis, Atanazio Katraro, Edmund Keeley and Dimitris Daskalopoulos, whilst translations into French have also been published, by Theodoros Grivas in 1973 and Angelos Vlachos in 1983, as well as the edition Sixty Three Poems, translated by J.C. Kavafy, with an introduction by Manolis Savvidis, 2003.