THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original purple cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the better than very good lightly rubbed and price-clipped dustwrapper, that is toned to the spine and panel edges, and otherwise without loss or tears.

One of the great works of post-war British poetry and the first volume of Larkin's poetry to be published by Faber and Faber (his second novel, 'A Girl in Winter', had been published by the firm in 1947). A year later, the author was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and an Arts Council prize for "the best book of original English verse by a living poet published from July 1962 to June 1965". The first printing was published on 28 February 1964 in an edition of 3,910 copies. (Bloomfield A7).