Catalog 115, D-F
86. DAVIDSON, Toni. Scar Culture. NY: Norton (1999). The advance reading copy of the first American edition of this novel that is billed as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest originality mixed with the divine audacity of William Burroughs and Irvine Welsh." Fine in wrappers.
87. DELILLO, Don. The Body Artist. NY: Scribner (2001). His latest book, a novella. This is one of an unspecified number of copies signed by the author on a tipped-in leaf. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
88. (DELILLO, Don). The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society. (Jerusalem): (Caspit Press/The Jerusalem International Book Fair) (1999). A pamphlet printed in tribute to DeLillo on the occasion of his accepting the Jerusalem Prize -- DeLillo being the first American so honored. Contains his acceptance address, "A History of the Writer Alone in a Room," a short, powerful meditation on writing and writers and their place in our culture and consciousness, imbued with DeLillo's characteristic honesty and dark humor. Fine in stapled wrappers.
89. DICK, Philip K. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Garden City: Doubleday, 1974. Winner of the John W. Campbell Award for 1975 and also nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. This is a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with trace rubbing at the spine extremities. Additionally, laid in is the back panel and rear flap of a second copy of the dust jacket, which is signed by Dick under his photo and dated 4/9/74. On the rear flap, Dick has written his address and phone number, and the book's title and publisher. This second, partial jacket is folded in twelfths. The timing of this signature and notation is interesting: the book was actually released in late December, 1973, although it has a 1974 date on the title page; in February and March, 1974, Dick had what he described as mystical or visionary experiences in which he believed he was in touch with the divine forces that guide the Universe, which he named "VALIS," for "Vast Active Living Intelligence System." He spent the rest of his life trying to understand what had happened to him during those months, and in an interview given in 1981, shortly before he died, he concluded that he had been being used by the Intelligence and said "in essence, I had served my purpose in Flow My Tears," which is one of the books in which Dick has a "cipher" which gives coded messages to particular people able to receive and understand them; with this book, and the experiences of "2-3-74," as he called them, Dick felt he had joined a secret, ongoing cosmic battle between good and evil, and had been granted insight into the nature of the gods and reality.
90. DICK, Philip K. The Golden Man. (NY): Berkley (1980). The uncorrected proof copy of this paperback original. A collection of stories that Dick helped select, and for which he wrote an introduction and "story notes." Near fine in edge-sunned wrappers. An extremely scarce proof: proofs are generally done in much smaller quantities for paperback novels than for hardcovers; the ones that we have seen for which we have been able to get reasonably reliable numbers have been done in print runs of fewer than two dozen copies, and it's reasonable to suppose that this title conforms to that pattern; we have only seen one other copy of it.
91. DICK, Philip K. Valis. NY: Bantam, 1981. The uncorrected proof copy of the book that is widely considered Dick's masterpiece, and is certainly the most elaborate metaphysical construct in his fiction, much of which was concerned with the nature of being and of knowledge, and the world behind and beyond appearances. A fragile, padbound proof, one of 19 copies produced. Publication date changed by hand on the front cover and a paper clip imprint there; slight dust soiling; near fine in wrappers.
92. EHRLICH, Gretel. Geode/Rock Body. Santa Barbara: Capricorn Press, 1970. Her first book, a collection of poems. This is one of 550 copies of the issue in wrappers, of a total edition of 600 copies. Ehrlich later wrote The Solace of Open Spaces and other well-received prose works. Fine.
93. ELKIN, Stanley. Boswell. NY: Random House (1964). The debut of one of the few writers whose is admired by, and has influenced, writers of both the "postmodern" school of American fiction and those whose work tends more toward the "realistic." A fine copy in a near fine dust jacket with a thumbnail sized abrasion at the rear flap fold.
94. ELKIN, Stanley. A Bad Man. NY: Random House (1967). Elkin's third book, second novel. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with a hint of edge wear.
95. ELKIN, Stanley. The Dick Gibson Show. NY: Random House (1971). Slight dampstaining to cloth at the spine base; else fine in a near fine dust jacket. Nominated for the National Book Award.
96. ELKIN, Stanley. The Making of Ashenden. (n.p.): Covent Garden Press, 1972. Elkin's first limited edition. One of 500 unsigned copies of a total edition of 600. Near fine in wrappers.
97. ELKIN, Stanley. Searches and Seizures. NY: Random House (1973). A collection of three novellas, including "The Making of Ashenden." This is the hardcover issue; there was also a simultaneous trade paperback issue. Fine in a near fine, mildly spine-faded dust jacket. Nominated for the National Book Award the year that Thomas Pynchon won for Gravity's Rainbow.
98. (ELLISON, Harlan). Partners in Wonder. NY: Walker and Co., 1971. Collaborative short fiction in the science fiction and fantasy genre, featuring works by a number of the most important writers in the field: works by Ellison alone and in collaboration with fourteen other writers including Robert Bloch, Robert Sheckley, Ben Bova, Theodore Sturgeon, Samuel R. Delany, A.E. Van Vogt and Roger Zelazny. Each piece is also introduced by Ellison. Signed by Ellison. Fine in a near fine dust jacket.
99. FALLACI, Oriana. The Useless Sex. London: Michael Joseph (1964). The uncorrected proof copy of the first English-language edition of her first book published in English, an examination of the lives and roles of women around the world and throughout history. Fallaci went on to become one of the most renowned female journalists of the Sixties and Seventies, and an interviewer par excellence, whose pointed interviews with such figures as Henry Kissinger and the Ayatollah Khomeini were the most incisive published. Light creasing; near fine.
100. FAULKNER, William. Mosquitoes. NY: Boni & Liveright, 1927. Faulkner's second novel, published in an edition of 3047 copies. This is a fine copy, with the gilt on the covers still brilliant and a bare minimum of shelf wear at the edges of the blue cloth; in a near fine example of the first issue "mosquitoes" dust jacket, corner-clipped but not price-clipped, as is often the case with this jacket. The jacket is very slightly spine-tanned, and rubbed a bit along the front hinge, with a short tear at the upper edge of the rear spine fold; still a remarkably fresh, crisp jacket -- as nice a copy as we've seen in recent years.
101. FAULKNER, William. Pylon. NY: Smith and Haas, 1935. Owner signature; pages foxed; a very good copy in a very good, lined and spine-tanned dust jacket with flaps affixed to endpages.
102. FAULKNER, William. The Old Man. (NY): Signet (1948). First thus: the first separate printing of the sections of The Wild Palms that were collected under this title. A Signet paperback. Very slight spine slant; trace edge wear; slight sunning to the spine; near fine.
103. FORD, Richard. A Piece of My Heart. New York: Harper & Row (1976). The first book by the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day. Signed by Ford. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light wear at the spine crown. An attractive copy of a scarce first book.
104. FORD, Richard. The Ultimate Good Luck. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. His second novel, a hard-boiled thriller involving American expatriates in Mexico. Signed by the author. This copy has about 1/4" of the cracking of the rear hinge that is endemic to this title, but is otherwise fine in a near fine dust jacket. Partly because of the weak construction at the rear hinge, this title has come to be harder to locate, particularly in fine condition, than his first book.
105. FORD, Richard. The Sportswriter. NY: Vintage (1986). His third novel, a paperback original, and his breakthrough book. Signed by the author. Publication as a paperback original in the Vintage Contemporaries series brought Ford a readership ten times as large as the book would have had in hardcover; and his obvious talent lent credibility to what was at that time a fledgling paperback series and an experiment, the results of which comprised a revolution in publishing -- the inauguration of the trade paperback format as the primary means for distributing literary fiction in this country. Ford's sequel to this novel, Independence Day, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Fine in wrappers.
106. -. Same title, the first British, and first hardcover, edition. London: Collins Harvill, 1986. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket. Probably the scarcest of Ford's hardcover editions.
107. FORD, Richard. Rock Springs. NY: Atlantic Monthly (1987). His fourth book, first collection of stories. After the critical and commercial success of The Sportswriter, Ford's next book was published by the newly launched fiction imprint of the Atlantic Monthly, with considerable fanfare and promotion. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
108. FORD, Richard. Wildlife. NY: Atlantic Monthly (1990). His fifth book, a novel. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
109. FORD, Richard. Independence Day. NY: Knopf, 1995. A sequel to The Sportswriter and winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, a rare literary double. Signed by the author on Independence Day in the year of publication. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
110. FORD, Richard. Women with Men. NY: Knopf, 1997. The first trade edition of this collection of three novellas. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
111. (FORD, Richard). The Granta Book of the American Short Story. (NY)/London: Viking/Granta (1992). Ford edits and introduces this massive anthology with work by John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, T.C. Boyle, Tobias Wolff, Joy Williams, David Leavitt, Lorrie Moore, Paul Bowles, Shirley Jackson, Wallace Stegner, Stanley Elkin, Donald Barthelme, William Gass, Richard Yates, James Salter, Tim O'Brien and many others. The copyright page bears both British and American information; based on the jacket price being in dollars, this is the American edition. Signed by Ford. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
112. (FORD, Richard). "The Womanizer" in Granta 40. (London): (Granta) (1992). Signed by Ford at his contribution. Other authors include Nadine Gordimer, Paul Theroux, Alan Lightman and William Vollmann, among others.
113. FOX, Paula. How Many Miles to Babylon? NY: David White (1967). A "young adult novel" published the same year as her first adult novel, Poor George. Fine in a near fine, spine-faded and price-clipped dust jacket.
114. FOX, Paula. The Widow's Children. NY: Dutton (1976). Faint foxing to foredge and top edge, else fine in a near fine jacket with a bit of wear at crown.
115. FRANK, Pat. Alas, Babylon. Philadelphia: Lippincott (1959). A nuclear holocaust novel written at the height of the Cold War and envisioning the small-town survivors of a nuclear war. A stunning success when originally published, it has retained something of a cult status, and continues to be on school reading lists and to live a healthy life in cyberspace, with dozens of websites and/or cybernet "handles" derived from it. Fine in a very good, rubbed dust jacket with several edge tears, mostly at the folds.