THE SEASONAL QUARTET, AND COMPANION PIECE: Autumn; Winter; Spring; Summer; Companion Piece.

First editions and first printings of the four volumes of Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet of novels, along with the concluding Companion Piece. Each volume signed by the author. Original multi-coloured cloth (respectively Terracotta, Light Grey, Mustard Yellow, Light Green, and Purple) lettered to spines and front panels in copper, silver and gilt and black. Each volume complete with a wraparound band reproducing a seasonally appropriate David Hockney painting (Early November Tunnel' [2006]; Winter Tunnel with Snow, March [2006]; Late Spring Tunnel, May [2006]; Early June Tunnel [2006]; Felled with Trees on Woldgate [2008]). The Quartet endpapers are individually coloured, the rear endpapers reproducing artwork by Pauline Bony, Barbara Hepworth, Tacita Dean, Lorenza Mazzetti, respectively. A fine set, presenting as unread, the cloth and lettering sharp, the contents clean and bright throughout. The protected wraparound bands are all fine and bright, without fading or marks. Each volume individually priced (£16.99) to the inner flap of it wraparound band. A beautiful set.

All five volumes signed by Ali Smith in black ink on the title page. In a 2016 interview, Smith recalled that she'd "been thinking about writing a seasonal series of books for about 20 years now, and in 2014, after finishing 'How to Be Both', I realised it was time to start. This might simply be because I knew now it was possible, after Hamish Hamilton made such a beautiful finished book-form for 'How to be Both' in a matter of weeks, to turn a book around quite speedily compared to the usual time it takes, and this excited me about how closely to contemporaneousness a finished book might be able to be in the world, and yet how it could also be, all through, very much about stratified, cyclic time." Between 2016 and 2020, author and publisher triumphantly rose to the challenge of writing and publishing "to the moment" (to borrow Samuel Richardson's useful phrase). As such, the first instalment opens with, and is shadowed by, the recent Brexit referendum, while the concluding volume takes in pandemic lock-down and Black Lives Matter protests. It is not journalism, however, each volume a fully fleshed-out novel replete with Smith's customary temporal experiments, wordplay, and allusive reach. Of 'Companion Piece', which appeared two years after 'Summer', Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Guardian, 30 March, 2022) noted that it "doesn't feel like a coda [...], rather an addition to a book sequence for all seasons, with no end in sight. Smith could carry on adding to the writerly collage she is creating through many more volumes. I hope she does." 'Autumn' was shortlisted for the 2016 Booker Prize; 'Summer' was winner of the 2020 Orwell Prize.