Catalog 136, P-R
181. PAYNE, David. Early from the Dance. NY: Doubleday (1989). This North Carolina author's second novel; his first, Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street, won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
182. PAYNE, David. Ruin Creek. NY: Doubleday (1993). His third book. Signed by the author in Dallas in the year of publication. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
183. (PELECANOS, George). "When You're Hungry" in Unusual Suspects. NY: Vintage (1996). An anthology conceived as a fundraiser for Share Our Strength, a nonprofit organization that fights hunger, poverty, and illiteracy. With donated stories by Pelecanos, James Lee Burke, Jeremiah Healy, Jonathan Lethem, Joyce Carol Oates, Julie Smith, Jim Thompson, Andrew Vachss and others. This copy is signed by Pelecanos, Burke and Oates. A paperback original; fine in wrappers. Together with the uncorrected proof copy, signed by Pelecanos, Lethem and Healy. Slight creasing rear cover; still fine in wrappers. For both:
184. PERCY, Walker. The Moviegoer. NY: Knopf, 1961. His first book, winner of the National Book Award and a novel that helped establish Percy as both an important Southern writer and as a chronicler of the spiritual malaise of modern America. The Linda Hobson bibliography gives the first printing as 1500 copies, although we have been told that it was more, perhaps as many as 3000; in either case, by today's standards -- or even by the standards of the time -- the first printing was tiny. This is a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with a short edge tear on the upper front panel. One of the nicest copies we've seen of this title.
185. PERCY, Walker. Love in the Ruins. NY: FSG (1971). His third novel, which was nominated for the National Book Award. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
186. PERCY, Walker. The Thanatos Syndrome. NY: FSG (1987). The first trade edition of Percy's last novel. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
187. PROULX, E. Annie. The Shipping News. NY: Scribner (1993). A review copy of her second novel and third work of fiction, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize -- a rare literary double. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
188. PROWELL, Sandra West. By Evil Means. NY: Walker (1993). Her first book, a mystery novel featuring Phoebe Siegel. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
189. PUZO, Mario. The Godfather. NY: Putnam (1969). A bestseller that became, under the direction of Francis Ford Coppola, an Academy Award-winning film, #2 on the AFI's list of the top 100 films of all time. Owner gift inscription; mottled boards; text block a bit shaken; a very good copy in a very good dust jacket, worn at the edges and rubbed at the folds; with an attempt at tape-strengthening on verso.Uncommon in the first edition.
190. -. Same title, the screenplay. NY: Paramount, 1971. Written by Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. 173 pages. This is the second draft, dated March 1, 1971, with 20 extra pages of March 16 revisions laid in, revising the first 20 pages of the script. There is also a revised page 68 laid into the script. The revisions are edge worn: they are not bound in and thus their edges protrude from those of the bound pages and the binding itself. The main text has some slight foxing; still a very near fine copy, riveted into a well-creased and rubbed embossed binder. A very scarce example of the working script of one of the greatest films of all time, showing the production as a work-in-progress.
191. PYNCHON, Thomas. V. Philadelphia: Lippincott (1963). Pynchon's first book, winner of the Faulkner Foundation Award for best first novel of the year, and the debut of one of the most important American writers of the postwar era. Corners bumped; near fine in a near fine dust jacket lightly rubbed on the front panel, as usual, but with none of the fading to the spine that is endemic to this title, and very unusual thus.
192. PYNCHON, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49. Philadelphia: Lippincott (1966). Pynchon's second novel, winner of the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the most overtly political, and paranoid, of Pynchon's novels. Chosen by David Pringle as one of the hundred best novels of Modern Fantasy. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a little offsetting to the flaps and a strip of rubbing to the upper rear panel.
193. PYNCHON, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow. NY: Viking (1973). Pynchon's landmark third novel, winner of the National Book Award as well as the William Dean Howells Medal for the best work of fiction by an American over a five-year span. Gravity's Rainbow became the benchmark for postmodern American fiction upon publication and secured its mysterious and reclusive author's place in the postwar American literary pantheon. A fine copy in a very near fine dust jacket with creasing at the spine crown. Small hardcover first printing of 4000 copies; the balance of the first edition was issued in softcover. An exceptionally tight copy of this book, with the top edge stain completely unfaded.
194. PYNCHON, Thomas. Mortality and Mercy in Vienna. London: Aloes (1976). A piracy of an early story, originally published in 1959. One of the most complex bibliographically of the Pynchon piracies, this copy corresponds to Mead C1a(2), with no cross next to the man's hips on the cover. Fine in stapled wrappers.
195. PYNCHON, Thomas. The Secret Integration. (London): (Aloes Books) (1980). The first printing of this piracy, which was limited to 2500 copies and later reprinted. This is the first separate appearance of a piece that Pynchon originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1964. Fine in stapled wrappers.
196. PYNCHON, Thomas. The Small Rain. London: Aloes Books (1982). The fourth and last of the Aloes piracies and, according to Michaud, the only one which may not have been reprinted. No statement of the limitation. Fine in stapled wrappers.
197. QUERRY, Ron. The Death of Bernadette Lefthand. Santa Fe: Red Crane Books (1993). The well-received first novel by this author of Choctaw descent. This is the hardcover issue; there was a simultaneous issue in wrappers. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
198. RICE, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. NY: Knopf, 1976. Her acclaimed first book, the first in the Vampire Lestat series, and one of the unlikeliest success stories of the publishing season. Modest hardcover sales of the book would not have led one to imagine the long-term popularity and success of Rice's later books in the Vampire Lestat series, nor did they predict the huge success this novel had in paperback, selling millions of copies. Even so, Rice's novels did not begin to approach such sales again until her next vampire novel, published after two mainstream historical novels. Rice's vampire novels are unprecedented bestsellers as well as being critically acclaimed, and even her erotic novels of sado-masochism have achieved a kind of mainstream success that defies prediction. This is the scarcest of the books, particularly in nice condition, as the gold foil dust jacket is notoriously prone to wear. Signed by the author. Lower corners tapped; else fine in a very near fine dust jacket with just a touch of shelf wear; one of the nicest copies we've seen.
199. ROBBINS, Tom. Another Roadside Attraction. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971. The uncorrected proof copy of the author's first novel, one of a handful of contemporary novels that became bestsellers slowly, by word of mouth, primarily on college campuses, long after the paperback editions came out. Never reprinted in hardcover, but never out of print in paperback. Inscribed by the author. Some modest sunning and staining to the cardstock covers; still near fine in tall, ringbound wrappers. Uncommon, especially inscribed.
200. -. Same title. Bound photocopied typescript. 393 pages, reduced to 7 1/4" x 9 1/4" page size, claspbound in red cardstock. The pages reproduce some copy-edited changes and casual examination reveals a couple of textual differences between this and the published text. Signed by the author. A bit of spotting to the edges; text block is near fine; binder is showing some wear from the weight. An unusual script: we've never seen one in this format before, and the non-standard size of it indicates a different sort of reproduction, and presumably a less common kind of reproduction, than one ordinarily finds with typescripts.
201. ROBBINS, Tom. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Norwalk: Easton Press (2003). A leatherbound edition of his second novel, which caused Robbins' cult following to mushroom when published in 1976. Signed by the author. Fine without dust jacket, as issued. Laid in is a printed Easton Press note about the book and the author, and an Easton Press certificate of authenticity, also signed by Robbins.
202. ROBBINS, Tom. Still Life With Woodpecker. (n.p.): (n.p.), 1979. Photocopied typescript of Robbins' third novel, which was published in 1980. 347 pages, with copy-editor's marks and reproducing Robbins' holograph corrections. 8 1/2" x 11", claspbound in an orange binder. Signed by the author. Fine.
203. ROBBINS, Tom. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. (n.p.): (n.p.), 1991. Photocopied typescript of his sixth novel, incomplete at 268 pages, but bearing both photocopied holograph corrections and several actual holograph corrections, in Robbins' hand. Also, across the top of each page, where Robbins usually puts the title, this copy has the author name, the page number, and "fool." A bit of edge creasing to some of the pages; on the whole very near fine.
204. ROBINSON, Marilynne. Housekeeping. NY: FSG (1980). The uncorrected proof copy of her first book and her only novel until the recent Gilead, which was named one of the top five novels of the year by the New York Times. Housekeeping won the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award and a Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award and was the basis for a well-received movie. This copy of the proof is cocked and spine-sunned, with some splattering and a corner crease to the front cover; very good in wrappers. A scarce book these days in the first edition; the proof, needless to say, is considerably scarcer.
205. ROBINSON, Peter. Playing with Fire. (NY): Morrow (2004). A new novel in Robinson's highly praised Inspector Alan Banks series of police procedurals, which has been compared favorably to Ian Rankin's John Rebus series. One of an unspecified number of copies of the first edition signed by the author on a tipped-in leaf. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
206. ROTH, Philip. When She Was Good. (n.p.): (n.p.), 1967. Taiwan piracy of Roth's second novel. Boards slightly splayed; near fine in a near fine dust jacket with trace wear at the spine ends and an edge tear at the upper front joint.
207. ROTH, Philip. The Prague Orgy. London: Cape (1985). The first edition of a volume not separately published in the U.S. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a lamination ridge on the spine.
208. ROTH, Philip. American Pastoral. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and one of the series of award-winning novels Roth published in the 1990s that, by general critical consensus, surpassed anything he had done before and elevated him to the front rank of American novelists, and a legitimate candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Fine in a fine dust jacket.