GUNN, Thom (1929-2004). My Sad Captains, London, 1961, 8vo, original cloth, dust-jacket. FIRST EDITION, 2nd impression, PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed, "Thom Gunn, with best wishes for Clive." With 5 other books by Thom Gunn, all SIGNED BY THE POET. (6)

GUNN, Thom (1929-2004).  My Sad Captains and other poems. London: Faber and Faber, 1962. 8vo (217 x 140mm). Half title. Original purple cloth, the spine lettered in gilt, dust-jacket with the price of 12s 6d. unclipped (the jacket with a few short tears and very slight loss at the corners). Provenance: Clive Wilmer (signature on the front free endpaper); a few pencil notes by the same. FIRST EDITION, second impression, PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on the title page, "Thom Gunn, with best wishes for Clive." A modern reproduction of Caravaggio's "Conversion on the Way to Damascus" is pasted onto the front free endpaper, the painting which forms the subject matter of the opening poem of the collection, "In Santa Maria Del Popolo." With 5 other books by Thom Gunn, namely, Fighting Terms (London, 1962, original cloth, dust-jacket, reprint based on the 1954 original with a printed note on the verso of the title stating: "This edition with revisions first published in 1962"), The Sense of Movement (London, 1963, original cloth, dust-jacket, third impression), Touch (London, 1967, original cloth, dust-jacket, FIRST EDITION), Moly (London, 1971, original cloth, dust-jacket, FIRST EDITION, with a newspaper photograph of the poet pasted onto the front free endpaper) and Jack Straw's Castle (London, 1976, original cloth, dust-jacket), ALL SIGNED BY THOM GUNN on the title pages. "[Thom Gunn's] celebration of men of action (soldiers, motorcyclists, tough boys), his fascination with violence, his gallery of heroes (who range from Elvis Presley to Caravaggio), together with his predominantly low-key, rational, laconic, colloquial manner provide an interesting synthesis of the English Movement and the romantic elements of American Beat Poetry" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Drabble, 1985). Provenance: From the Collection of Clive Wilmer (1945-2025; please see lot 418 for further biographical information about Clive Wilmer, in particular the section relating to Thom Gunn, with whom Clive Wilmer, a distinguished poet himself, maintained an enduring friendship over forty years). (6)