THE LABOUR ARCHIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL: Philip Larkin Memorial Series No.2.

First edition, first printing. Original stapled glossy card wrappers, the front cover reproducing a photograph of Julia Varley in prison dress, the back cover, a poster for one of Varley's factory meetings c.1910. A fine copy. Loosely laid in is an invite to the Jubilee celebration and launch of Saville's volume.

John Saville (1916-2009) was Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Hull. Saville's account of the Labour Archive at the University of Hull, which he created, was published to mark the Diamond Jubilee of the Brynmor Jones Library. The archive, as Ian Mowat writes in the Preface, was "one of the finest achievements of Larkin's tenure" at the library, "in giving not just house room but also positive encouragement to the creation of an archive collection, a large part of which consisted of material with which Larkin can have had little political or philosophical sympathy", exemplifying "his approach of laying aside his own prejudices in favour of the pursuit of excellence."