THE DEATH OF THE KING'S CANARY

Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1978. Book. Illus. by John Butler;. Very Good-. Soft cover. First Paperback Printing. (x) 145 pp. Lightly rubbed on the corners with a flat uncreased spine; small scuff mark on the front cover and a small ink mark and some wear along the lower edge of the text block; no interior markings. Cover art by John Butler. Hilary Byrd threw a wild party to celebrate his Poet Laureateship. The cast numbered every shade of human eccentricity, from a fuddled old duke to a dope-smoking butler. There were polite dwarfs, mincing gays, bloated poets, hungry nymphomaniacs, a vodka-sodden Nobel prizewinner; there were Harry Bartatt, the Yorkshire sculptor, and fretful Eric Wetley, dressed entirely in rubber. This was originally written in 1941 and in it, Thomas and Davenport lampooned many of their most distinguished contemporaries, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Augustus John, Henry Moore et al. But at the time, book would have been considered libel. Over thirty years later, it was possible to publish the book without getting sued..