HUGHES, Ted. Lupercal. London: Faber and Faber. 1960.
8vo. Original maroon cloth with silver title lettering; red and white dust jacket; pp. [4], 63, [1]; slight loss to top and bottom of spine with general toning to jacket and fading to cloth; otherwise very good.
First edition presentation copy, signed and inscribed by Hughes to Lee Anderson, "To Lee/With my very best wishes/from Ted/23rd April 1960". Bookplate of Lee Anderson to front pastedown which is designed by famed cartoonist James Thurber.
Lee Anderson and Ted Hughes would record poems together after meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1958. On 17th May 1960, less than a month after the presentation of this volume, Anderson recorded Hughes reading poems from Lupercal on five tapes that are now held as part of the Yale Series of Recorded Poets Sound Recordings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The contents page contains notes, including timings of poems, written in Anderson's hand and so this volume was likely used by him for the recordings. Page 9 contains a manuscript correction by Hughes.
This second collection from Ted Hughes, following on from his much acclaimed debut volume, The Hawk In The Rain, includes a printed dedication ‘to Sylvia’ on the title verso. Although he had moved to America in 1957, the poems of Lupercal are not at all estranged from the Yorkshire landscape within which Hughes was so entrenched and illuminates so meticulously, attempting to occupy the mind of what he referred to as a 'thinking nature'.
It would be seven years until the celebrated poet would produce his next collection, Wodwo.
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