Catalog 120, M-N
175. MAXWELL, William. The Writer as Illusionist. (NY): (Unitelum Press) (1955). A small, little-known pamphlet printing a speech delivered by the author at Smith College in March, 1955. Reportedly self-published and done in a very small edition. This copy is inscribed by Maxwell: "To my partner/ with love/ The Author." In 1945, Maxwell married Emily Gilman Noyes. They remained married for 65 years until her death, eight days prior to Maxwell's own. There are two mentions of "a wife" in this speech on how and why a writer writes, the second of which says, "She alone knows when he is, and when he is not, writing like himself." She alone may know if this was or was not her copy. Edge-sunned; near fine in stapled wrappers.
176. McCARTHY, Cormac. The Orchard Keeper. NY: Random House (1965). A review copy (author photo, no slip) of McCarthy's first book, which won a Faulkner Foundation Award for best first novel of the year. Although the book was successful enough to go into a second printing, fewer than 3000 copies were sold in total, and it was a quarter century before McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and brought him recognition beyond the small, passionate circle of devotees who had been reading him and collecting his books all along. This book is notorious for several flaws: the front flap tends to detach at the fold, from slightly excessive scoring in the bindery, and the white jacket is susceptible to yellowing and soiling. This is a fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with just the beginning of a split at the lower edge of the front flap. In a custom clamshell box. A beautiful copy of an important first book that is seldom found in this condition, and rarely as an advance copy.
177. -. Same title, the U.K. edition. (London) Deutsch (1966). Page edges foxed and some fading to the spine cloth. Still at least very good in a bright, price-clipped pictorial dust jacket, which has some slight rubbing at the spine extremities, tape shadows on the flaps, and a bit of strengthening on the verso. Overall an attractive copy of an uncommon edition which, given the relative sizes of the U.S. and British book market, is probably considerably scarcer than the U.S. edition.
178. McCARTHY, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. NY: Knopf, 1992. The first volume of the Border Trilogy, a landmark novel that won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and propelled its author to "instant" literary celebrity -- after nearly three decades of writing well-received literary novels in relative obscurity. The hardcover edition of this novel went into numerous printings, eventually selling nearly ten times as many copies as all of his previous books combined. Signed by the author. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with one slight lower corner bump. Signed first editions of this, the author's breakthrough book, are notably uncommon.
179. -. Same title, the uncorrected proof copy. This is the second state, with the printed subtitle "Volume One of A Border Trilogy" changed by hand to "Volume One of The Border Trilogy" and a "4" added to the publication date of May 1992. A later state made these changes in print. Fine in wrappers.
180. -. Same title, the third state proof, with "The" set in type. A fine copy.
181. McCARTHY, Cormac. The Crossing. NY: Knopf, 1994. The sequel to All the Pretty Horses, and the second novel in The Border Trilogy. Inscribed by the author: "For ____/ With all best wishes/ Cormac McCarthy." Fine in a fine dust jacket. Although McCarthy signed a number of special copies that were distributed by the publisher and never formally offered for sale, signed copies of regular trade editions of the books in the Border Trilogy are scarce.
182. McCARTHY, Cormac. The Stonemason. (Hopewell): Ecco (1994). The trade edition of his first play, which had a first printing of 7500 copies (compared with 150,000 copies for The Crossing, which was issued at about the same time). This copy is signed by the author. There was a signed edition of this title, issued with a limitation of 350 copies, but those were signed on a tipped-in leaf. Signed trade editions are uncommon. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
183. McCARTHY, Cormac. Cities of the Plain. NY: Knopf, 1998. The third volume in The Border Trilogy. Signed by the author. There was a signed limited edition of this title, but those copies were signed on a tipped-in leaf. Again, signed trade editions are extremely uncommon. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
184. -. Same title. The uncorrected proof copy. Rumor has it that at the author's request, fewer proofs (less than 100) were produced for this volume than for the earlier books in the series. Fine in wrappers, laid into a near fine dust jacket.
185. McCARTHY, Cormac. The Border Trilogy. NY: Knopf (1999). The first combined edition of All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, issued as a volume in Knopf's "Everyman's Library" series. Signed by the author. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with one short edge tear.
186. (McCARTHY, Mary). BRIGHTMAN, Carol. Writing Dangerously. NY: Clarkson Potter (1992). A well-received biography of perhaps the most important American woman of letters of the 20th century. Signed by Brightman with an autograph note signed laid in. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
187. McDERMID, Val. A Place of Execution. NY: St. Martin's Minotaur (2000). The advance reading copy of the first American edition of this novel that was shortlisted for the 1999 Gold Dagger award and won the 2001 Anthony Award. Front cover slightly splayed; else fine in wrappers.
188. McGINNIS, Joe. The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. Boston: Little Brown (1999). The advance reading copy of this novel by a writer who is most well-known for his often controversial nonfiction (Fatal Vision, The Selling of the President 1968, etc.). Fine in wrappers.
189. McMURTRY, Larry. Horseman, Pass By. NY: Harper (1961). McMurtry's first book, one of A.C. Greene's "50 best books on Texas," basis for the movie Hud, and winner of the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters for the best novel of the year. McMurtry's last draft of this novel was dated August, 1960, just before he entered Wallace Stegner's Stanford writing workshop, where he wrote part of his second novel, Leaving Cheyenne. Among the other students there in the late 1950s and early 60s were Ken Kesey, Robert Stone, Tillie Olsen, Wendell Berry and Ed McClanahan, among others. Horseman, Pass By, which takes its title from the closing lines of William Butler Yeats's poem "Under Ben Bulben" (as did Mary McCarthy's first novel, Cast a Cold Eye), was a breakthrough in Texas literature and in regional literature in general: by telling a raw, unadulterated story entirely fitting to its contemporary West Texas setting, McMurtry not only brought the regional novel out of its quaint gentility but gave it a universality it could not have had otherwise: it has been called a West Texas Catcher in the Rye, with the caveat that the lives of Texans in general were a little more crude than those of the Easterners in Salinger's novel. Faint offsetting to front flyleaf and a small shallow dent to front board; still fine in a fine dust jacket with the tiniest bit of rubbing to the rear spine fold; one of the nicest copies of this book we have seen in years.
190. McMURTRY, Larry. Leaving Cheyenne. NY: Harper & Row (1963). His second novel, one of the "50 best books on Texas," according to A.C. Greene. McMurtry's first two books are quite scarce and of the two this is likely the scarcer. Inscribed by the author. A decade after this book came out, and in the wake of the successful movie adaptation of McMurtry's third novel, The Last Picture Show, this was made into the film "Lovin' Molly." Very mild foxing, else fine in a price-clipped dust jacket with faint sunning to the spine.
191. McPHEE, John. Basin and Range. NY: FSG (1981). The printer's blues for the first of his books on geology, which, when combined with his later writings on the subject in the 1998 compilation Annals of the Former World, won the Pulitzer Prize. Approximately 112 loose pages, 12 1/2" x 9 1/2", printing two pages of text to a sheet, on rectos only, plus three half-sheets printing the dedication page (twice) and the copyright page. An extremely rare state of the book: only a tiny handful of such copies would have been produced, perhaps as few as two or three, or possibly only this one. McPhee's writings on geology, which have comprised almost half of his published output over the last two decades, are among the most lucid ever written on the subject, making an arcane field that is swamped in obscure and confusing vocabulary and terminology not only accessible to a general reader but as fascinating and dramatic as one would think the history of the planet would be, if one could achieve the right perspective on processes that take place over billions of years. Light edge wear to a couple pages; else fine.
192. MILLER, Andrew. Casanova in Love. NY: Harcourt Brace (1998). The advance reading copy of the first American edition of this young British writer's second novel. His latest was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Fine in wrappers.
193. MINOT, Susan. Rapture. NY: Knopf, 2002. A short novel by the author of Evening and Monkeys, among others; her fifth book. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author.
194. MOODY, Rick. The Ice Storm. Boston: Little Brown (1994). The advance reading copy of his second book, made into a film by Ang Lee that won an award at Cannes, for best screenplay adaptation from a novel. Fine in wrappers.
195. (MOODY, Rick). "Wilkie Ridgeway Fahnstock, the Boxed Set" in 5x5 Singles Club, Primal Primer 1. Allston: Primal Publishing (1997). A 4" x 5 1/4" booklet collecting four writers, Moody, Eileen Myles, Michael McInnis and Laurie Weeks, and one photographer, Suara Welitoff. This copy is signed by Moody, whose contribution was later collected in Demonology. An uncommon item by a group of interesting artists. Fine in wrappers.
196. MORRISON, Toni. Beloved. NY: Knopf, 1987. The uncorrected proof copy of the Nobel Prize-winning author's fifth novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Fine in wrappers.
197. NAIPAUL, V.S. The Mystic Masseur. (London): Andre Deutsch (1957). The first book by this Trinidadian author of Indian descent, recent winner of the Nobel Prize. Small bookstore sticker from a Port of Spain (Trinidad) bookstore on the front pastedown. Endpages foxed; near fine in a very good, spine-faded dust jacket with foxing to the rear panel and a tear across the lower front panel. Naipaul's first novel has become increasingly scarce in recent years.
198. NAIPAUL, V.S. A Bend in the River. NY: Vintage Books (1980). The first Vintage edition, a paperback, of this novel of modern Africa that was something of a breakthrough book for Naipaul when it was published the previous year. A front-page review in The New York Times Book Review brought him long-overdue attention and commercial success in this country. One of the Modern Library's books of the 20th century. Signed by the author. Books signed by Naipaul are relatively uncommon, as he seldom does tours and book signings in support of his newly published books. Fine in wrappers.
199. NAIPAUL, V.S. The Enigma of Arrival. NY: Vintage Books (1988). The first Vintage Books edition of this autobiographical novel. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers.
200. NAIPAUL, V.S. A Way in the World. NY: Knopf, 1994. The advance reading copy of this collection of linked fictional narratives. Signed by the author. Fine in wrappers, in publisher's embossed cardstock slipcase.
201. NICHOLS, John. The Milagro Beanfield War. NY: Holt Rinehart Winston (1974). His third book and most well-known, the first in his New Mexico Trilogy. Basis for a well-received movie. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A beautiful copy of a book that seldom turns up in such condition.
202. NOON, Jeff. Vurt. NY: Crown (1995). The first American edition of this highly praised first novel, originally published by a small press in England. This book won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Noon won the John W. Campbell Award as the best new writer, 1993-94. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
203. NUNN, Kem. Tapping the Source. NY: Delacorte (1984). Nunn's powerful first novel, set in the surfing subculture of Southern California. Nominated for the National Book Award. Faint top edge foxing; else fine (without the frequently encountered remainder speckling) in a near fine dust jacket with light wear at the spine extremities.