NEW COLLECTED POEMS

First edition, first printing. From the library of James Booth, former Professor of English at the University of Hull, and biographer, editor and former colleague of Philip Larkin, with his neat pencil annotations to the Foreword (written by another former colleague at Hull, the poet Douglas Dunn). Original dark blue paper-covered boards with cream lettering to the spine, in the Pentagram designed dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents, except for the aforementioned annotations, clean throughout. There is a light vertical crease to the paper covering the spine panel (the binding remains unaffected). In the fine, unclipped dustwrapper (£25.00 to the front flap).

This New Collected Graham, freshly edited by the poet and Graham scholar Matthew Francis, adds two posthumously published collections as well as a number of previously unpublished poems to the work previously collected in 'Collected Poems 1942-1977'. The volume, generously annotated, also includes a foreword by Douglas Dunn. "I first read a W. S. Graham poem in 1949. It sent a shiver down my spine. Forty-five years later nothing has changed. His song is unique and his work an inspiration." (Harold Pinter).