One man and his bird, a psychodrama
WHITE, T.H. The Goshawk London; Jonathan Cape. 1951.
8vo. Original cherry red cloth with vignette in blind to upper board, lettered in silver to spine, top edge red, preserved in pictorial red dustwrapper; pp. [x], 11-215; with a couple of diagrams in the text; previous owner's signatures to front endpapers, a very fresh copy, both externally and internally, protected by the unclipped, dustwrapper (10s. 6d.) with a little chipping to upper edge and extremities; scarce.
First edition.
White's classic account of his struggle to train a goshawk has begun to be rediscovered after featuring heavily in Helen MacDonald's Costa Award-winning H is for Hawk (2014). She points out that White's book is as much a psychological drama as a book on falconry, and also identifies many ways in which his experiences with the hawk fed into his writing of The Once and Future King; White comes to resemble his hawk just as the young Arthur is transformed into a merlin. Although highly regarded by falconers, this book never became a bestseller, and is consequently difficult to find in nice condition.
#2120593