ARIEL, by Sylvia Plath.

A unique copy of Sylvia Plath's second and last poetry collection, written in the final months of her life and posthumously published after her suicide.

SIGNED by ROBERT PENN WARREN on a bookplate on the front free endpaper. Robert Penn Warren was, as was Sylvia Plath, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. HIS REVIEW is printed on the front flap of the dutjacked. A GREAT ASSOCIATION COPY.

Published by Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, copyright 1966. A later, but still early printing of the U.S. edition, with the dustjacket price of $8.95 at the top of the front flap and the code 0666 at the bottom of the front flap, and no statement of additional printings on the copyright page.

Hardcover book in dustjacket, black cloth covered boards embossed with Harper's iconic colophon embossed in blue on the front cover and blue titling embossed on the spine, 5.5x8 inches, 85 pages.

Condition: NEAR FINE book, light foxing to the top page edges (page edges of the closed book), otherwise sharp cornered, tight, bright, clean and unmarked; in a GOOD dustjacket that is toned, has a chip to the top edge of the front panel, a bit of wear to the spine ends and corner tips, and some creasing to the top edge of the rear panel. A solid, presentable copy.

"Ariel is a unique book - it scarcely seems a book at all, rather a keen, cold gust of reality as though somebody had knocked out a window pane on a brilliant night. It is a plangent, painful book, with all the pain translated into beauty, nothing less. Poem after poem seems to have been waiting there always to be recognized." - Robert Penn Warren, from his tribute on the front dj flap.