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67 HUGHES, Ted. Meet My Folks. London: Faber and Faber, 1961 Presentation copy to his sister First edition, first impression, presentation copy of Hughes’s first book of children’s verse, inscribed by him on the front free endpaper to his sister Olwyn Hughes, “To Olwyn with love from Ted April 1st, 1961”, six days prior to publication. Hughes was very close to his sister Olwyn. After Plath’s suicide in 1963 Olwyn helped to bring up their children, became her brother’s literary agent, established the Rainbow Press with Ted in 1971 to produce fine press editions of his works, and remained devoted to him her entire life. In Meet My Folks , Hughes introduces his readers to his wackily reimagined family, including his sister Jane, who is “nothing but a great big crow”. Given the centrality of the crow to Hughes’s mythos, this may not be as disparaging a comparison for Olwyn as it may sound at first. Octavo. Original illustrated boards, titles to front cover and spine in red and blue. With dust jacket. Illustrated by George Adamson. Slight separation between gatherings A and B, else a very good copy in the dust jacket, rear panel stained, slight chipping at head of spine and tips. ¶ Sagar & Tabor A4a, their “AB” state, without priority. £2,250 [125956]
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66 HOUSMAN, A. E. Autograph letters to Professor Donald Robertson. Cambridge: 1920–36 “ONE OF THE FEW AND EVIL YEARS REMAINING TO ME ON THIS SIDE OF THE SEVENTH CIRCLE OF THE INFERNO, WHICH APPARENTLY IS WHERE SCHOLARS GO” An exceptional collection of letters signed from poet and classicist A. E. Housman (1859–1936), spanning his undergraduate days to his death, to Donald Struan Robertson (1885–1961), a stellar Greek scholar and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and his wife. Robertson was particularly respected for his work on Apuleius and was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge from 1928 until 1950. Housman, as Kennedy Professor of Latin (the most senior Latin chair at Cambridge) from 1911 until his death, was Robertson’s counterpart. As such this correspondence shows us Housman the classicist in long-term correspondence with one of his closest Cambridge peers and has many flashes of sardonic humour. The collection closes rather poignantly with a letter in a shaky hand from the Cambridge nursing home in the month of Housman’s death. 11 autograph letters, all signed, most one page but some two or three in length. Housed in a green imitation leather folder. Excellent condition. £8,750 [119798]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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