THE PRICE OF STONE

Signed limited edition. No. 94 of 115 copies (1-25 hors commerce). Large Octavo (26.8 x 19.5 cm) Quarter blue cloth lettered in gilt over illustrated cloth showing an engraving by Reg. Boulton to the front panel. Printed on Zerkall mould made paper at Five Saasons Press near Madley, Hereford. Upper edge gilt, fore- and lower edges untrimmed. Double title-page lettered in grey and blue. In the grey cloth-covered slipcase. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Small mark to the rear board of the book and a handful of small marks to the rear of the slipcase, which is also a little rubbed.

Signed by the author in blue ink to the limitation page at the rear. Murphy's series of fifty sonnets, or "sonnet-buildings", with each poem named for a building of architectural feature, are the vehicle for a reflection upon the author's colonial childhood, English education and Irish experience, including the birth of his son in a Dublin hospital in 1982. The poems were published later the same year as the title sequence of Murphy's acclaimed Faber collection, 'The Price of Stone'.