PHILIP LARKIN: The Man and His Work.

First edition, first printing. Signed and dated by the Dale Salwak with, loosely laid in, an invitation to the book launch, a letter from the publisher, and two copies of a photograph of the editor and his wife with Philip Larkin. From the library of Professor Edwin A. Dawes, one of the contributors to the volume, with his illustrated bookplate to the front pastedown. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dustwrapper showing a smiling Larkin standing in the Brynmor Jones Library. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the spine tips a touch softened. The fine dustwrapper shows some very light wear to spine tips. Not price-clipped (£17.95 to a bookseller's label affixed to the front flap).

Signed and dated in black ink to the title page, "Dale Salwak / 19 September 1989". A generously filled collection of tributes to Philip Larkin issued four years after the poet's death. The book is divided into three parts: 'The Man', 'His Work' and 'In Retrospect', the contributors including Kingsley Amis, John Bayley, Maeve Brennan, Barbara Everett, Donald Hall, and David Lodge, as well as Professor Edwin A. Dawes, the owner of this copy. Dawes (1925-2023) was Reckitt Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Hull, later serving as the University's Pro Vice Chancellor, Dean of Science, and also as Chair of the Library Committee. Dawes got to know Larkin in the latter's capacity as chief librarian at the university. They soon, however, became close friends, and Dawes was later a founder and chairman of the (posthumous) Philip Larkin Society. He was also an award-winning magician and historian of magic, which explains his Ex Libris bookplate showing an alchemist presiding over a steaming concoction with, at his left hand, a copy of Giovanni Battista Della Porta's 1558 'Natural Magick' (the figure bears an uncanny resemblance to Sigmund Freud). The design, he later explained, married his two passions of science and magic. Dawes' chapter in this book is entitled 'Larkin Around in the Library', its first part a personal chronicle of Larkin's library career at Hull, the remainder an account of the warm friendship that developed between Dawes and the poet. The volume's editor, Dale Salwak, as well as being an English professor at Citrus College, California was, like Dawes, a practising magician, and Dawes' piece recounts the evening "which Philip [...] was kind enough to refer to as one of the most remarkable he could recall" where, after dinner at the Dawes' house, Salwak performed for Larkin, Dawes and his wife.