8vo. Original cloth; dust jacket; cloth folding case. Provenance: John Updike (presentation inscription, autograph note signed, see below). 

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY COLLINS TO JOHN UPDIKE: "To John Updike with long-standing admiration. Billy Collins Nov 1994." [Laid in:] UPDIKE, John. Autograph sentiment signed ("John Updike"). 1 page, 8vo, in ink, on a yellow lined sheet, comprising 12 lines with 2 emendations or corrections.

A manuscript copy of JOHN UPDIKE'S BLURB FOR COLLINS'S LATER WORK THE ART OF DROWNING: "Lovely poems—lovely in a way almost nobody's since [Theodore] Roethke's are. Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides."

[With:] COLLINS. Pokerface. Los Angeles: Kenmore Press, 1977. LIMITED EDITION, number 81 of 400 copies SIGNED BY COLLINS. -- COLLINS. Video Poems. Long Beach, CA: Applezaba Press, 1980. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY COLLINS. -- COLLINS. The Apple that Astonished Paris. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1988. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY COLLINS. -- COLLINS. The Art of Drowning. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY COLLINS. -- COLLINS. Picnic, Lightning. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. FIRST EDITION, hardcover issue, SIGNED BY COLLINS. -- COLLINS. Picnic, Lightning. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. FIRST EDITION, softcover issue, SIGNED BY COLLINS. -- Together, 7 works in 7 volumes, all in original publisher's bindings, all housed in matching folding cases, condition generally fine.