Gaudete
Faber and Faber, 1977.
First edition. 8vo. Black boards lettered in gilt in pictorial dustwrapper, designed by Leonard Baskin. INSCRIBED on the front free endpaper to the poet Leonard Clark, "For Leonard/ in a book he won't like much to begin with, better later - as ever, Ted" A fine copy in a fine dustwrapper.
Leonard Clark (1905-1981), poet, editor and critic, originally worked in education, becoming government Inspector of Schools in 1936. It was at about this time that he started to write poetry seriously. He edited various anthologies in the 1930s and had his first collection of his own work published by the Fortune Press in 1940. He proceeded to work in literature as a writer and critic for the rest of his life, establishing the Leonard Clark Prize for poetry in 1969.
Hughes's work came specifically to Clark's notice in his capacity as a poetry critic. He wrote reviews for both of Hughes's first two collections, cautiously at first, noting that the young poet showed promise and likening his style to "a mixture of Eliot, Auden, Hopkins and John Crowe Ransom", and then with some enthusiasm. "Watch this poetÂ… if he continues to write poetry and develop at the present rate, he has a glowing future" is how he begins his review of Lupercal.
Hughes and Clark met in 1965 and frequently thereafter. Hughes was one of the contributors to the collection, "A Garland of Poems for Leonard Clark on his 75th Birthday" in 1980.
Stock ID: 19520
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