The Hawk in the Rain [Signed]

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. First American Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine+. Second Printing (copyright page with I-G code) of the poet's first collection, published one month after the first, dedicated to Sylvia Plath, and signed by Hughes on title page. Slim Crown 8vo: x,[2],52pp. Publisher's black coated cloth, spine and upper cover stamped in gold; yellow illustrated dust jacket designed by Caroline Harris, printed in dull grayish-blue and priced $2.75. An excellent example, signed, with bright gilt and paste-downs free of usual staining from binder's glue; Near Fine or better jacket, embrowned at edges and along spine panel. Sagar & Tabor A1b. A collection of 40 poems, as in the London edition (published five days earlier) but rearranged. After their honeymoon in France and Spain, the Hughes returned to Cambridge. Plath, who considered her husband's poetry the "most rich and powerful since that of Yeats and Dylan Thomas, had typed out almost all his poems and submitted them, as The Hawk in the Rain, to a competition for a first book of poems being run by the Poetry Centre of the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of New York. In February 1957 the judges, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Marianne Moore, awarded the first prize—publication by Harper and Row [sic]—to Hughes. Marianne Moore wrote: 'Hughes' talent is unmistakable, the work has focus, is aglow with feeling, with conscience; sensibility is awake, embodied in appropriate diction.'" (ODNB) Reviews were almost unanimously enthusiastic, and book won the Somerset Maugham award. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).