THE ONE DAY AND POEMS 1947-1990

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Inscribed presentation copy with a loosely laid in letter to the recipient, the literary biographer and academic Lyndall Gordon. Publisher's original black cloth with title in gilt to the spine, in the Stephen Raw designed dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, just lightly bumped to corners and to the lower spine tip. The contents are clean throughout. Complete with the lightly dustwrapper that has one tiny nick at the head of the spine. Not price-clipped (£18.95 to the front flap). An intriguing association copy.

Inscribed by the author in black ink to the title page, "For Lyndall / (especially The One Day, / with daily thanks) / Donald Hall / 6. 30. 99". The recipient is the distinguished biographer of (among others) T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë, and Henry James. Born in Cape Town, and following studies at Columbia University, Gordon settled in Oxford where she became (and remains) a senior research fellow at St. Hilda's College. It isn't clear when Hall and Gordon first met, but the inscription refers to the extended title poem that ends this volume. The poem, originally published in the US as a single volume in 1988, was composed over many years. As Hall writes in the long note at the back of the book, "The poem began in the fall of 1971", following "a bad patch of middle-life". He describes the writing as "seem[ing] like dictation, and although sometimes I knew from what part of my life certain lines started, at other times everything was strange – as if I received signals from other lives." In her copy, Gordon has underlined (in pencil) that final eight word clause, adding a small tick beside it in the margin. The letter laid into the book is from Hall in New Hampshire to Gordon in Oxford (its August 1999 date the same as the inscription). Typed on his personalised paper, he thanks Gordon for a letter and tells her he has "the Bronte and the new Eliot, and will read them soon – to be followed of course by the two others that I know of. (When you feel able, I want to know what you are doing next […]). I will come to England again, I will come to Oxford again, and we will talk again. So I hope and believe. I really enjoyed your company so much." Gordon's connection to 'The One Day' is unclear, but the inscription, letter, and underlined words suggest that, for the poet, she had been an enabling influence for this very personal poem. 'The One Day' won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as a Pulitzer Prize nomination. This was its first appearance in the UK. The rest of the book reprints the selection of Hall's works published in the US as 'Old and New Poems' in 1990. Donald Hall (1928-2018) was US poet laureate (2006-7). He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2010.