LAUBBAUM SPRACHE (Deciduous Language / Laubbaum Sprache. Gedichte. English / Deutsch)

(Denklingen): Babel, 1998. First edition, specially bound, signed issue, limited to 10 numbered copies (I-X), bound in full leather, signed by R. S. Thomas. 82. [6]pp. A fine copy, in publisher's unprinted cream-colored cardboard slipcase box (numbered in pencil, by the publisher). The slipcase has few spots of very faint dust soiling, else near fine. First edition, specially bound, signed issue, limited to 10 numbered copies (I-X), bound in full leather, signed by R. S. Thomas. 82. [6]pp. LIMITED TO 10 SPECIALLY BOUND COPIES, SIGNED BY R. S. THOMAS. Very nicely printed by Martino Mardersteig, at the Stamperia Valdonega, Verona. This specially bound edition, in full brown morocco, is limited to ten numbered copies, signed by R. S. Thomas. R[onald] S[tuart] Thomas (1913 - 2000), Welsh poet and Anglican priest, "was noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales. John Betjeman, in his 1955 introduction to Song at the Year's Turning, the first collection of Thomas's poetry to be produced by a major publisher, predicted that Thomas would be remembered long after he himself was forgotten. M. Wynn Thomas said: 'He was the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn of Wales because he was such a troubler of the Welsh conscience. He was one of the major English language and European poets of the 20th century'... Almost all of Thomas's work concerns the Welsh landscape and the Welsh people, themes with both political and spiritual subtext..." [Wikipedia].