ELEGIES

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Publisher's original green cloth lettered and ruled in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Faint spotting to the upper edge of the page block, with a handful of spots to the fore-edge. In the clean, bright dustwrapper, with a couple of very faint spots and the merest fading to the spine. Not price-clipped (£7.50 net to the front flap). An attractive copy.

Signed by the author in black ink to the title page, "with best wishes / Douglas Dunn". 'Elegies', Dunn's sixth collection, was written after the death of the poet's wife Lesley in March 1981, aged 37 (Michael Longley later wrote that Dunn "was hurt into the sorrowful beauty of [the] Elegies"). The poems, which have frequently – and justly – been compared to the extraordinary poems written by Thomas Hardy following the death of his first wife Emma, recount the period between diagnosis (of melanoma of the eye) and death, as well as earlier, happier, times. The collection was Whitbread Book of the Year in 1985.