ALL WHAT JAZZ: A Record Diary.

First edition, first printing of this revised and extended edition. From the library of the Larkin scholar and biographer, James Booth, former Professor of English at the University of Hull, his pencilled name to the title page. Original terracotta cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the Pentagram designed dustwrapper showing Nick Cudworth's illustration of Larkin holding a pair of drumsticks. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean. Minor bump to the upper outer corner. One or two small marks to the lightly toned page block. In the dustwrapper, a touch faded to the inner margin of the front panel, with a little wear and marking to spine tips and the lower edge of the rear panel. Small horizontal tear (c. 1 cm) to the lower half of the spine, which has left a mark and a dent/puncture (c. 3 mm) to the cloth beneath. Not price-clipped (£9.95 net to the front flap).

Larkin wrote about jazz for the Daily Telegraph between 1961 and 1971. Although he was characteristically self-deprecating about their quality, and about his qualifications to write them, he was clearly fond of these occasional pieces. "I have rescued these articles from their press-cuttings book", he writes in the introduction, "because for all their slightness and superficiality they contain occasional sentences that still amuse me or seem justified". Writing to the sales director at Faber and Faber (12 June 1969) regarding publicity for the forthcoming book, Larkin advised that "the best line you can take is that you are promoting a freak publication: please don't put it forward as a piece of jazz scholarship, or even as any sort of contribution to the field. Treat it like a book by T. S. Eliot on all-in wrestling." Published simultaneously in hard and soft covers in June 1985, 2,052 copies of the hardback were printed. It was the last volume to be published before the author's death the following December. (Bloomfield A8(c)).