THE BUKOWSKI / PURDY LETTERS 1964-1974

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. One of 26 copies, with an original artwork by Charles Bukowski and a holograph poem by Al Purdy. Hardcover. Hand-bound by Earle Gray in silver cloth blacked paper covered boards with titles in dark blue on a silver paper label to the spine. Photographic portrait frontispiece and a few abstract line drawings throughout. A fine copy, the binding square and tight, bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout and without previous owners' marks. Rare in this form.

Issued in a limited edition of 26 copies, from which this example is lettered 'F' and signed by Charles Bukowski (with and original drawing) and Al Purdy in blank ink on a blank front endpaper. This edition also includes a tipped in original abstract pastel drawing by Charles Bukowski and a holograph poem by Al Purdy in green ink on hand coloured paper which has been folded into an airmail envelope and tipped in at the front, as issued. "The correspondence gives a candid and intimate glimpse of the literary life of two rather isolated writers - as unclubbable in their way as Henry James was in his. Their affinities are quickly established in the exchange, and mutual admiration ensues, Purdy's established by the review which he begins by sending and Bukowski's elicited by the first poems of Purdy's he sees. During the period of this correspondence, each man takes a memorably described trip - Purdy to the Arctic and Bukowski to New Orleans. Seeming to rival each other in their capacity for alcohol intake... each improvises tipsily and copiously on matters personal and literary, exchanging frank - often generous - opinions of more celebrated fellow-writers as well as offering vivid vignettes of their personal lives" - Seamus Cooney. (Krumhansl 81).