Books

First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author "for Elizabeth Alethea Harcourt" on the title page. The recipient is almost certainly the English artist Elizabeth Aletha Harcourt, the daughter of the painter George Harcourt (1868-1947). Inscribed copies of the first edition are particularly scarce. White wrote this account of his attempt to train a goshawk using traditional falconry techniques in 1936. Owing to its intimate revelations of his personality, White was reluctant to publish the work, but acquiesced after his publisher happened upon the manuscript during a house visit in 1949. David Garnett described it as "Tim's best book... a masterpiece". Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine in silver, hawk talon in blind to front cover. With dust jacket. A firm, square copy, a little rubbed to extremities with very small white blemishes to spine and edges, but very good in the jacket with the slightest of toning to spine, ends a little creased, but bright.

The Goshawk is a book by T. H. White, a British author best known for his sequence of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King. In this work, White describes his attempt to train a Northern Goshawk using traditional falconry techniques. The book is a reflective account of the struggles and successes he encountered, and it has been praised for its introspective and literary prose as well as its exploration of the relationship between man and nature.