Mailer, Norman

Barbary Shore

New York, NY: Rinehart & Co. Inc., 1951. First Edition. Hardcover. "There are only six principal characters in BARBARY SHORE- two women, three men, and a child. yet out of their extraordinary relationships- to each other, to the world around them- Norman Mailer has extracted the dilemma of our times. A novel of action, it is also a novel of ideas, and the interplay evokes a gamut of comedy, of horror, of excitement, of tragedy whose bearing on our world is inescapable." (from front flap) The second published novel by Norman Mailer (1923-2007), the prize-winning novelist & a towering figure in American fiction & journalism whose works are now enshrined in the Library of America series. Published three years after his remarkably successful debut novel The Naked and the Dead (1948), Barbary Shore continued the theme of war & its consequences, with a chief protagonist who is an amnesiac World War II veteran. While not particularly appreciated when it first appeared, this novel is now recognized as a pioneering & insightful depiction of what we have come to understand as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first edition, first printing though neither explicated at sparse copyright page- our research indicates that publisher's logo of its initial in a circle, present thereon, confirms that this is a first edition/printing. From the collection of Dr. Stanley Hurwick Levy (1926-2020), an esteemed American physician who met & conferred with Albert Einstein while a student prodigy during the 1940s, & was among the most legendarily prolific book collectors of them all, over many years. This writer was privileged to attend a presentation/tour conducted by Dr. Levy at his home some years ago, & was duly most-impressed by his vast & varied collection. An essential Mailer collectible in its rarest contemporary form, with distinguished provenance. Book in relatively quite near-fine condition with just a touch of rubbing to front, back covers & spine (white letters, graphics at spine mostly bright & completely intact); minor-to-moderate wear incl. tiny bumps, creases & some loss of black surface at edges & corners of same; mild-to-moderate browning & rubbing to edges of text block. Interior fine with only mild browning to blank paste-downs, endpapers & page leaves (the latter mostly at blank margins/edges). Dust jacket (again relatively) fair-to-good with moderate rubbing, browning, faint creasing & occasional spotting to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild-to-significant wear at edges & corners of same incl. tiny bumps, creases, mostly closed tears esp. at lower right spine-edge & across middle of spine, chips esp. at spine-edges, corners with some loss of paper, surface paper. Near Fine / Fair-Good. [Item #6427]

Price: $100.00