Hockney's Alphabet HOCKNEY, David & Stephen SPENDER (editor) Literature & Classics

4to. 27 full-page color illustrations by David Hockney. Publisher's vellum-backed blue boards, spine titled in gilt, t.e.g., in slipcase with color title label; fine. One of only 24 roman numeral-numbered copies of this deluxe production to raise funds for people living with AIDS. These copies were reserved for William A. McCarty-Cooper who helped fund the book's production but died before publication. Each Hockney illustration is accompanied by a short poem or essay on the facing page by various contributors. Signed by Hockney and Spender, as well as most of the living contributors: Joyce Carol Oates, Iris Murdoch, Norman Mailer, Seamus Heaney, Martin Amis, Erica Jong, Ian McEwan, Nigel Nicholson, Margaret Drabble, Craig Raine, William Boyd, V.S. Pritchett, Doris Lessing, William Golding, Arthur Miller, Ted Hughes, Kazuo Ishiguro, Julian Barnes, John Updike, Susan Sontag, Douglas Adams, and Patrick Leigh Fermor. This copy is also signed twice by Paul Theroux, who along with Ted Hughes, Anthony Burgess and Gore Vidal had declined to sign the edition. First edition, deluxe numbered and signed edition, no. XII of XXIV copies (of 350 total) copies signed by contributors and reserved for William A. McCarty-Cooper, the artist and the editor.