LETTERS HOME, 1936-1977

First edition, First printing. Inscribed presentation copy. From the library of Professor Edwin A. Dawes, with his illustrated bookplate to the front pastedown. Original red paper-covered boards lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dustwrapper illustrated with a wonderful Larkin family photograph (with a suitably grumpy Philip). A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents bright and clean throughout. Upper spine tip a touch pushed. In the fine, unclipped, dustwrapper (£40.00 to the front flap). Loosely laid in to this copy is Professor Dawes' Philip Larkin Society membership card and a single page from notepad showing, at the top, five face cards from a deck of playing cards, items neatly reflecting Dawes' guises as founder of the Larkin Society and magician. A very nice association copy.

Inscribed by the editor in black ink to the title page, "for Eddie, / James Booth / with warm regards, and / thanks for everything". Edwin Dawes (1925-2023), from whose library this volume came, was Reckitt Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Hull, later serving as the University's Pro Vice Chancellor, Dean of Science, and Chair of the Library Committee. Dawes first knew Philip Larkin in the latter's capacity as chief librarian at the university, but the two soon became close friends, Dawes later founding the (posthumous) Philip Larkin Society (of which James Booth, the editor of this volume, was literary advisor and editor of the Society's journal). He was also an award-winning magician and historian of magic, which explains his wonderful Ex Libris bookplate. Showing an alchemist presiding over a steaming concoction with, at his left hand, a copy of Giovanni Battista Della Porta's 1558 'Natural Magick' (the figure bears an uncanny resemblance to Sigmund Freud), the design, he later explained, married his two passions of science and magic. Following Anthony Thwaite's edited volumes of Larkin's letters ('Selected Letters' and 'Letters to Monica'), James Booth's extended selection of the poet's letters to family members, predominantly to his mother, Eva, opens up this vital part of the poet's life for the first time. As Blake Morrison remarks in his review of the book (The Guardian, 31 October 2018), "Eva dominates this collection – and [...] dominated Larkin's life". The volume also includes letters to his father, Sydney, city treasurer in Coventry and an early admirer of Hitler, who died in 1948.