KAVANAGH, Patrick. By Night Unstarred. An Autobiographical Novel. Edited by Peter Kavanagh. (First edition)

The Goldsmith Press, The Curragh, Ireland, 1977. First edition. Octavo. 199pp. Original brown cloth, title and author lettered in gilt on spine, in the original pictorial dust jacket, with striking portrait of Patrick Kavanagh by Brian Bourke to the front panel; portrait of Peter Kavanagh by Charles Cullen to rear. Jacket lightly rubbed and toned, particularly at spine and extremities; internally clean and bright. A very good copy in the uncommon original dust jacket. A particularly attractive example of the first edition, retaining the distinctive Brian Bourke dust jacket.

Published posthumously a decade after Kavanagh’s death, By Night Unstarred is an autobiographical novel assembled and edited by his brother Peter Kavanagh. The work draws upon two unfinished novels by Kavanagh and offers a characteristically vivid evocation of rural Irish life, artistic ambition and the experiences which shaped one of Ireland’s foremost twentieth-century poets.

The volume concludes with Peter Kavanagh’s commentary on his brother’s life and work, noting Patrick Kavanagh’s death in Dublin on 30 November 1967. The first edition comprised 199 pages and was issued by the Goldsmith Press in 1977.

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