THE BEST WORKER IN EUROPE

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author and the artist. Inscribed presentation copy. Publisher's original stitched brown card covers printed in green and black. Hand-set in Hunt Roman, printed on Saunders Laid mould-made paper. Illustrated with three line drawings in green by Charles Jardine. A very near fine copy, the binding firm with a very faint mark to the upper cover otherwise fine. The contents are clean and bright throughout.

Issued in a limited edition of 156 copies, this example is numbered 36 and signed by Ted Hughes and Charles Jardine on the limitation page at the rear. Further inscribed by Ted Hughes in black ink on the front endpaper "For Frank / The Salmon does not fear his fate / In Jaws of Death he'll seek a mate / See him now accelerate / into her mouth, across her plate. / from Ted / December 1985". The recipient is Hughes' friend, Frank Pike, editor at Faber and Faber for 41 years and from the 1960s onwards responsible for the Faber drama list, recruiting Tom Stoppard, Simon Gray, Brian Friel, Sam Shepard, and Alan Bennett, among others, as well as working closely with authors already publishing with the firm, notably Samuel Beckett.