HIGH WINDOWS

First edition, first printing. From the library of James Booth, former Professor of English at the University of Hull, biographer, editor and former colleague of Philip Larkin, with his pencilled name to the title page. Original light grey cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents clean throughout, without spots, marks or toning that often affect this book. Small mark on the inside margin of p. 31 (some glue from the binding process); the text is unaffected. Complete with the bright, unclipped dustwrapper (£1.40 net to the front flap), rubbed to the upper spine tip and a touch to the upper outer corner but without spotting, fading, or toning. An attractive copy.

The front flap of 'High Windows', the poet's final collection, states simply that "No introduction is necessary to this new collection of poems by Philip Larkin. It is his first since 'The Whitsun Weddings' (1964)". It is perhaps the finest, and certainly the darkest, of Larkin's four collections. The first edition was published on 3rd June 1974 in an edition of 6,142 copies which, according to Charles Monteith, sold out in three weeks, a record, in Faber's experience, for a cased volume of new verse. (Bloomfield A10a).