BUKOWSKI, Charles (1920-94) & Al PURDY (1918-2000). The Bukowski Purdy Letters. 1964-1974. The Paget Press, 1983, 8vo, boards. FIRST EDITION. COPY "D" OF 26 SIGNED BY BOTH POETS, WITH AN ORIGINAL PASTEL BY BUKOWSKI AND HOLOGRAPH POEM BY PURDY. RARE.

BUKOWSKI, Charles (1920-94) & Al PURDY (1918-2000).  The Bukowski Purdy Letters. 1964-1974. A Decade of Dialogue. Edited by Seamus Cooney. Sutton West & Santa Barbara: The Paget Press, November 1983. 8vo (230 x 150mm). Half title, monochrome double portrait frontispiece, title printed in red and black, illustrations and facsimile pages (2 marginal spots to p.53). Original silver-foil coated cloth-backed coloured decorated boards by Earle Gray, spine with printed label, grey endpapers, original acetate wrapper. Provenance: from the Collection of David Kotthoff. FIRST EDITION. COPY "D" OF 26 COPIES HAND-BOUND BY EARLE GREY, SIGNED BY BOTH POETS & CONTAINING AN ORIGINAL SIGNED PASTEL BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI & A DECORATED ORIGINAL SIGNED HOLOGRAPH POEM BY AL PURDY. The pastel by Bukowski, inserted at the front, is a bright abstract design signed "BUK". The 6-line holograph poem by Al Purdy, with hand-painted coloured strips at the edges, is entitled "Winter at Robbin Lake" (see illustration) and is folded into an airmail envelope pasted onto one of the front free endpapers. The signatures of the two writers appear on the recto of the blank leaf following the copyright page. The book is dedicated, perhaps with some irony on Bukowski's part, "for Canada Post & the U.S. Mail." Loosely-inserted is a New Year's greetings card from the publisher. "The correspondence gives a candid and intimate glimpse of the literary life of two rather isolated writers - as unclubable [sic] in their way as Henry James was in his. Their affinities are quickly established in the exchange, and mutual admiration ensues, Purdy's established by the review which he begins by sending and Bukowski's elicited by the first poems of Purdy's he sees. During the period of this correspondence, each man takes a memorably described trip - Purdy to the arctic and Bukowski to New Orleans. Seeming to rival each other in their capacity for alcohol intake ... each improvises tipsily and copiously on matters personal and literary, exchanging frank - often generous - opinions of more celebrated fellow-writers as well as offering vivid vignettes of their personal lives" (from Seamus Cooney's "Editor's Note"). Krumhansl 81d. RARE.