Auckland University Press, 1999. Slight fade to spine; foxing to page edges; previous owner's name/stamp at top of front endpaper, bookseller's sticker at bottom of front endpaper.

The Book of Nadath is a long prose poem by well-known poet and novelist Robin Hyde which has remained unpublished for 60 years. Written in 1937, Hyde?s last year in New Zealand, it is a sounding device for all the concerns which mark The Godwits Fly, A Home in This World and Nor the Years Condemn.

Among Hyde?s most brilliant works, it is a poem of exceptional lyric beauty and moving personal grief, and arguably the crowning achievement of her poetry. Nadath consists of 14 sections in which the central figure of a false prophet observes and is implicated in scenes ranging from the decolonising inheritance of New Zealand to the imminence of another war and possible conquest; but the moment of 1937 is its primary focus, the problem of how to articulate crisis ? which writing voice best serves political and spiritual truth ? is its enduring fascination.

The publication of this poem, with the assistance of Leggott?s introduction and textual notes, will significantly shift our assessment of Hyde?s achievement.