Roth, Philip

When She Was Good

New York, NY: Random House, 1967. First Edition. Hardcover. "When She was Good is the story- at once satiric and serious- of Lucy Nelson, a Midwestern girl who believes herself to be the moral superior of her family and friends, and of how she and those around her are destroyed when she sets out to prove that in matters of right and wrong she is the ultimate authority. Lucy's special mission is to make men do their duty by their wives and children. She begins her feverish crusade by attempting to reform her alcoholic father, and ends it, and her life, in a nightmarishly comic attempt to convert into "a good man" her boyish young husband, Roy Bassart...who never quite gets the drift of what is wanted of him." (from front flap) The third published work, & second full-length novel by philip Roth (1933-2018), the great, award-winning & prolific Jewish-American author whose works have been enshrined (since before he died, a particular honor) in the Library of America series along with his canonical contemporaries Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud et al. In this early-career novel, singularly featuring a female protagonist, Roth "...has depicted an entirely unexpected and yet thoroughly authentic region, the Midwestern world of Liberty Center...(and) continues Mr. Roth's chronicle of aspiration and disappointment in our time, and in our country." (from rear flap) Hardcover in unclipped first-issue dust jacket (with $5.95 price & "3/67" printed on front flap), first edition as stated on copyright page. Another essential collectible in the iconic Roth oeuvre, in its rarest original form & in relatively quite fine condition: Book fine with mild rubbing, fading & spot-fading to blue cloth front, back covers & spine (with front cover & spine lettering, graphics all-but-completely bright & intact); very slight wear, mild fading to edges & corners of same; light browning, rubbing to side & lower edges of text block (the former uncut as issued); mild fading, occasional spotting to red-dyed upper edge of same. Interior fine with light fading, browning to blank green paste-downs & endpapers; very slight browning mostly to blank margins/edges of page leaves; very small, decreasing water(?) stains at thin upper right margins/edges of first three page leaves. Interestingly, a stamp at lower right area of blank first leaf reads: "Represented By: Sam Gelfman/ GENERAL ARTISTS CORPORATION/ 600 MADISON AVE.- NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022/ Tel: 935-5964." We believe that Gelfman was Roth's agent at the time of this publication, & therefore that this stamp enriches the value of this copy. Dust jacket fine with mild rubbing, light browning & fading to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mostly very mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same incl. miniscule loss of surface paper esp. at upper edges & corners; one short crease at upper right, side margins/edges of front flap incl. (but not substantially effecting) price thereon. Fine / Fine. [Item #5128]

Price: $200.00