NORTHLIGHT

First edition, first printing. Softcover issue (hard and soft cover editions were issued simultaneously). Inscribed presentation copy. From the library of Professor Edwin A. Dawes, with his illustrated bookplate to the front pastedown. Original card wrappers. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. The pages are lightly toned as usual owing to the poor quality paper stock. Priced £3.95 net to the rear panel. A nice association copy of the author's seventh collection..

Inscribed in black ink to the title page, "To Edwin Dawes / with best wishes / – Douglas Dunn". The poet's first collection following the Whitbread award winning "Elegies" (1985). This copy belonged to Edwin Dawes (1925-2023), Reckitt Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Hull, later serving as the University's Pro Vice Chancellor, Dean of Science, as well as Chair of the Library Committee. Dawes knew both Douglas Dunn and Philip Larkin in their capacity as librarians at the university. Dawes became a close personal friend of Larkin and was later founder and chairman of the (posthumous) Philip Larkin Society. He was also an award-winning magician and historian of magic, which explains his distinctive Ex Libris bookplate showing an alchemist presiding over a steaming concoction with, at his left hand, a copy of Giovanni Battista Della Porta's 1558 'Natural Magick' (the figure bears an uncanny resemblance to Sigmund Freud). The design, he later explained, married his two passions of science and magic.