ISLAND SONG

First edition. Inscribed presentation copy. One of 10 copies of Hong Kong paper (of a total edition of 40). Marbled card wrappers with gold label printed in black to the upper cover. String bound. A fine copy with very light rubbing to the wrapper extremities, the contents clean and bright throughout.

Inscribed by the author in blue ink on the front endpaper "For Andrew / with my love / Fritz / Christmas 1956". This copy hand-numbered 6 on the colophon page. The recipient Andrew J. Chiappe was the first friend Frederich Prokosch made on arrival at Cambridge University, a relationship the highly respected Shakespeare scholar and professor of 17th century English literature at Columbia maintained until his untimely passing of a heart attack in Paris aged 52. One of the author's "Butterfly Books". The work of the poet, novelist, translator and publisher Frederic Prokosch, hailed as something completely new in modern literature, received effusive praise from T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Mann, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, Albert Camus and scores of other towering figures of 20th century literature. Provenance: Andrew J. Chiappe (1915 - 1967); thence by descent; private collection Tasmania.