AUBADE
Salem, OR: Charles Seluzicki | printed at the Penstemon Press, 1980. Original Wrappers. Fine binding. Item #6682
Oblong 12mo. [20] pp., illus. Limited edition, number 179 of 250 copies, initialed by both Larkin and Schallock on the colophon. As issued, printed on a several handmade papers and sewn into stiff wrappers all housed in an antique-silver lined envelope.
Originally published in the Times Literary Supplement in 1977, "Aubade" is, in the words of Janice Rossen, "Larkin's most grim meditation on mortality"; five stanzas that Larkin himself describes as his "in-a-funk-about-death-poem" (qtd in Rossen, p. 141). Despite the fairly large limitation, it is reasonably scarce in the trade and a remarkably lovely edition of Larkin's "meditation." Rossen, Janice. Philip Larken: His Life's Work.
Price: $700.00