TED HUGHES FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Faber & Faber, (1963). First edition. An early collection of twenty-three poems, including “Moon-Tulips”, “Moon-Freaks” and “The Dracula Vine”. Not published in the USA.
Foolscap 4to (22cm). 46,[ii]pp. Striking full-page illustrations by Rolf Brandt (1906-1986). Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; top edge a little spotted, but a very good and bright copy in the Brandt dust-jacket – the jacket lightly sunned at spine (as usual), but complete, unworn and very good indeed.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1967). First edition : in the primary binding, lettered in gilt rather than silver. A collection of forty poems, five stories and a radio play.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 184pp. Original quarter red cloth, with grey cloth sides, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; a hint of tanning to endpapers, but a very good and bright copy in the Berthold Wolpe dust-jacket – design in red and grey on white – just lightly used and slightly tanned. With the 1969 ownership inscription of Brian Morse. Sagar & Tabor A12a.i.

£100

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London : Faber & Faber, (1967). First edition : in the uncommon secondary binding, lettered in silver rather than gilt. A collection of forty poems, five stories and a radio play.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 184pp. Original quarter red cloth, with grey cloth sides; a few faint spots to top edge, but a very good and bright copy in the Berthold Wolpe dust-jacket – a design in red and grey on white – also very good and fresh. Small contemporary ownership monogram and date. Sagar & Tabor A12a.i.

£100

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Crediton : Richard Gilbertson, [1967]. First edition : limited to 100 copies – this copy unsigned, unsewn, untrimmed, and out of series, but presumably belonging to the final sequence of sixty-four copies, without the manuscript additions. Fourteen poems, including “An Otter”, “The Jaguar”, “Wodwo”, “Hawk Roosting”, etc.
Post 4to (27)cm. [iv],18,[ii]pp. Unsewn sheets in salmon-coloured fur-grained wrappers, lettered in black; a couple of tiny marks, but a very good copy.

£100

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Crediton : Richard Gilbertson, (1968). First edition : one of just twenty-six numbered copies (of 500) inscribed with a complete verse from the first song in the poet’s hand and signed and dated 3rd January 1969 by Ted Hughes. A collection of five poems.
Crown 4to (25cm). [ii],(10)pp. Original fluorescent pink stapled wrappers, lettered in black; just a hint of rubbing, but a very good copy of this fragile production. Sagar A18 – noting that no copy of this issue had been seen by the compilers.

£400

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Crediton : Richard Gilbertson, (1968). First edition : one of 312 ordinary numbered copies (of 500). A collection of five poems.
Crown 4to (25cm). [ii],(10)pp. Original fluorescent pink stapled wrappers, lettered in black; a very good copy of a very fragile item.

£50

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Woodford Green : Poet and Printer, (1971). ~ First edition : limited to 200 copies, with an additional “no more than thirty” copies for academic or review purposes. In theory, half of the 200 copies were to be distributed by the publisher and half given to Hughes, but there was evidently a certain amount of muddle. The present example has the additional colophon indicating that it was printed as one of the review copies, but it is from Hughes’ own personal stock and numbered 59/88 below his signature. A collection of twelve poems, including the title-poem, as well as “Bones”, “Amulet”, “Snow Song”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). (28),[iv]pp. Original cream paper-backed red and black patterned boards, lettered on spine and upper cover in black; a very good copy indeed. Sagar & Tabor A28.

SOLD

London : Rainbow Press, (1976). First edition : one of just twenty-six lettered copies (of 226) printed for the author’s personal use and signed by Ted Hughes. A collection of thirty-one poems, designed and printed on hand-made paper by Sebastian Carter at the Rampant Lions Press in Cambridge. The ten illustrations, printed in blue, are by Ted Hughes himself.
Pott 4to (14cm). [iv],(66),[ii]pp. Illustrations. Original slate-blue Japanese paper boards, lettered in silver, with a cork roundel onlay; faint and tiny spot to rear endpaper, but a very good copy indeed in the original matching slip-case. Sagar A48 – noting that the compilers had not seen any of the twenty-six lettered copies.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1977). First edition : with the misprint “soelmn” for “solemn” on p.75. “An Anglican clergyman is abducted by spirits into the other world” – a narrative poem which began as a film scenario.
Demy 8vo (23cm). 200pp. Original black cloth, lettered in orange and gilt; an excellent copy in the Leonard Baskin dust-jacket – price-clipped but otherwise fine.

£50

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[North Tawton] : Morrigu Press, (1982). First edition : one of just seventy-five numbered copies, signed by Ted Hughes. A poem hand-printed on and bound in hand-made Fabriano papers, with a colophon by Leonard Baskin. Loosely inserted are the original hand-printed press flyer for the publication and two signed autograph notes to the great poetry collector and publisher Alan Clodd (1918-2002) on Morrigu compliments slips, the first from Nicholas Hughes (Ted Hughes’ teenage son), dated 27th August 1984, offering Clodd a copy of the publication – “our best piece of work so far” – and the second from Carol Hughes (Hughes’ second wife) dated 27th September, confirming receipt of the order and the despatch of the book.
Royal 8vo (25cm). [12]pp. Original grey-brown stitched wrappers, with a white title label printed in red; a very good copy of a scarce and fragile publication, with an attractive provenance.

£400

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London : Faber & Faber, (1986). First edition. A collection of seventeen poems, with striking full-colour illustrations by Leonard Baskin. Includes “Cyclamens in a Bowl”, “Sketch of a Goddess”, “Sunstruck Foxglove”, “Big Poppy”, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). (64)pp – including integral endpapers. Coloured illustrations. Original blue boards, ruled and lettered in gilt; a very good copy in a the dust-jacket – the jacket just faintly sunned, but also very good.

£40

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[Bideford] : Sunstone Press, (1993). First edition : published in a limited edition of 100 copies by Hughes’ own Sunstone Press, but this copy, without the limitation statement, evidently bound up from a small over-run of sheets remaining at the printers. Twenty-eight poems on the creatures of the sea – “Starfish”, “Whelk”, “Whale”, “Lobster”, etc. – each stunningly illustrated with a full-page colour illustration by Hughes’s Sunstone partner, the artist Reginald James Lloyd (b.1926). A disagreement with his regular publishers, Faber & Faber, over this “naughty adventure” in self-publishing meant that when the Faber edition eventually appeared, after Hughes’ death and six years later, the illustrations were by a different artist (Flora McDonnell) and, attractive as they are, they are simply not the original illustrations of this full collaboration between artist and poet – the work of each inspired by the other.
Demy 8vo (210 x 148mm). [iv],28 leaves. Frontispiece and twenty-eight full-page coloured illustrations by Lloyd; bound in an elegant full pale blue straight-grain morocco, with Lloyd’s original “kelp” endpapers; a very good copy indeed of one of the scarcest of Hughes’ printed books. Just a single copy (Cambridge) of this edition located in major libraries worldwide.

£500

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London : Faber & Faber, (1999). First trade edition. Twenty-eight poems on the creatures of the sea – “Starfish”, “Whelk”, “Whale”, “Lobster”, etc., with illustrations throughout by Flora McDonnell. First published in a very limited edition by Hughes’ own Sunstone Press in 1993, but here in a revised text and with wholly new illustrations.
Foolscap 4to (18cm). [64]pp. Original navy-blue cloth, lettered in gilt; very good indeed in the Flora McDonnell dust-jacket, also very good indeed.

£25

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