Golding, William

The Spire

New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964. First American Edition. Hardcover. "Jocelin's Folly they called it; the great spire that the Dean drove upwards until the stone pillars that held it shrieked and the earth beneath it crawled and crept. For the spire had no foundations; and a spire, if it is to stand, must go down as far as it goes up. But an angel stood behind Dean Jocelin and he had seen a vision; and though God was no longer praised in his Cathedral and no candles burned there, though the general who commanded his army of builders faltered and things had happened about which it was better not to question men too closely, his spire still rose. It rose octagon by octagon, pinnacle by pinnacle- an immense impossibility in stone. And, as it rose, its shadow fell darkly on the world below, where people, tiny as insects, still went about their business: It fell on Pangall and Pangall's wife, on Father Anselm and Father Adam, on Roger Mason and Rachel Mason. It fell most darkly of all on Jocelin himself." (from front flap) The fifth novel by William Golding (1911-1993), the great British writer whose first novel, Lord of the Flies, immortalized him in the world literary canon & has been read & studied the world over by young people (including this writer during junior high school...), as with J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. But Golding was very prolific & produced many other very profound, powerful works including this intense & allegorical "...evocation of a totally obsessed, or possessed, will, and of the very feel and texture of the building that the will created." (from front flap) Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, "First American edition" as stated on copyright page, published the same year & likely concurrently with the first British edition. An essential collectible in the Golding oeuvre. Book in near-fine condition with mild rubbing & faint scratching to front, back covers & spine (with virtually no loss or dulling of gilt lettering on spine); mild wear with moderate loss of black color at edges & corners of same; rubbing, browning & spotting mildly to side & lower edges of text block; moderately at upper edge of same. Interior very fine with only mild browning & spotting to blank paste-downs & endpapers; miniscule bumps at mostly upper corners of a few page leaves. Unrestored dust jacket relatively near-fine with mild rubbing, browning & occasional spotting to front, back covers, spine & flaps esp. at edges & margins; mild wear, tiny bumps & creases at thin edges & corners of same; a few very short, mostly closed tears at edges & corners of same esp. at upper-left edge/ margin of front cover just above letter "H" in title with tiny hole & very slight loss of surface paper, & at lower spine-edges & corners. Near Fine / Good- Near Fine. [Item #4483]

Price: $100.00