The Mermaid's Purse

PROOF COPY, marked up for printing, signed and dated by the artist on the title page "R.J. Lloyd July 31st 1996" and initialled by him to half title, "Proof Copy - RJR 1993". With all 28 poems accompanied by Lloyd's full-colour illustrations as per published book. Lloyd illustrated four books for Hughes, including two published by their own Sunstone Press. In his Introduction to the catalogue of a retrospective exhibition of Lloyd's selected paintings in 1996, Hughes commented about his friend's illustrations for Mermaid's Purse, "Almost every painting he produced for this seems to me a small masterpiece. The luminous delicacy of the colouring in some of them is breathtaking" (p.VII). Loosely inserted is a compliments slip printed with Lloyd's home address in Devon, inscribed by his partner Louise MacMillan to an unknown buyer, enclosing this proof. Octavo. Unbound. Four gatherings of poems, illustrations, front and end papers (complete), preserved in plain cream wrappers lettered to spine by hand in black ink. Wrapps with a few tiny marks and internal orange streak, one gathering loose, contents clean. A near fine copy. [Sagar & Tabor A100. Ted Hughes, Intro to ‘R.J. Lloyd - A Retrospective Exhibition of Selected Works', Hereford City Museum & Art Gallery, 1996.].…