BOOK OF MERCY

First UK edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Publisher's original laminated card covers. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm with just a little rubbing at the corners and some fading of the spine. The contents are clean throughout and without previous owners' marks.

Inscribed by the singer-songwriter, writer and poet in black ink on the title page "For Ralph / all the best / Leonard Cohen". First published in Canada in 1984 by McClelland and Stewart. This first British edition was issued as a paperback original the same year. A collection of fifty poems or contemporary psalms. In a 1984 interview with the poet and novelist Robert Sward, Cohen called it "a secret book for me... a little book of prayer that is only valuable to someone who needs it at the time. It isn't aimed in the same way that a song is aimed".