One of only 10 copies, each one unique, with three new poems in Hughes's hand, one unpublished, and three extra water-colours by Baskin
3 water-colours and 10 lithographs printed on Barcham Green paper by Leonard Baskin, 10 facsimiles of the original manuscripts of each of the ten Hughes poems. One of 10 lettered copies with an additional three new poems written out by Ted Hughes and with three extra water-colours painted by Leonard Baskin (this copy B dated 1979), of a total edition of 125 copies signed by the author and artist. First edition. Elephant folio, housed in a specially designed clamshell box in black cloth with morocco spine label, the 10 lithograph drawings are elephant folio, the poems somewhat smaller folio, facing each poem is a mounted facsimile copy of the manuscript draft of the poem selected from the poet's working papers. London, The Scolar Press. 1975/1979.
125 copies of Cave Birds with the Baskin lithographs were printed in 1975, 100 of which were for sale, the remaining 25 being kept by Hughes, Baskin and the Scolar Press. Four years later, 10 of these 25 were embellished by Hughes and Baskin with three new holograph poems and three original water colours and lettered A to J.
Each copy is unique with different poems and watercolours. Our copy (B) has 'The Advocate', 'Two Dreams in the Cell' and 'Pheasant' written in Hughes hands and the watercolours by Baskin are of an owl, a hawk and an osprey.
The third poem Pheasant is unpublished. The other two poems were unpublished until 1983 when they appeared in Keith Sagar's Achievement of Ted Hughes with other unpublished poems. There are a couple of differences between the manuscript and published versions of these two poems - one on line 5 of Two Dreams in the Cell ("queries" for "questions") and one on the penultimate line of The Advocate in the manuscript "like a mosquito", published as "a mosquito".
The 10 lettered sets were offered for sale by Colin Franklin in 1980. This one has been in private hands ever since and never offered for sale before.
