A WILD SWAN AND OTHER TALES - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed, Placed, And Dated (Two Days After Publication) by Michael Cunningham - SIGNED, PLACED, AND DATED ON THE TITLE PAGE

Cunningham, Michael (Author) & Shimizu, Yuko (Artist/Illustrator)

ISBN 10: 0374290253 / ISBN 13: 9780374290252

Published by New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015, 2015

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 12 pages. Published in 2015. Collection of short stories, presented as modern fairy tales. One of Michael Cunningham's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly copies that are signed on the publisher's bookplate. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. "Autographed Copy" green round sticker pasted in front. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Michael Cunningham's "The Wild Swan And Other Tales". The fairy tale as inspiration, as pure pleasure, and as moral parable. "The people and the talismans of lands far, far away, the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: The years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half-cured of a curse. Reimagined by one of the greatest storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true" (Publisher's blurb). "We want escapism, of course, but there's another, more complicated, kind of escapism that we also want - an escape into a different, possibly larger, more immediately meaningful world. Fairy tales, movies, novels, they all take us out of the confines of ourselves, of our lives, even if we're perfectly happy with our lives. Because there are other lives too" (Michael Cunningham). An absolute "must-have" title for Michael Cunningham collectors. This Autographed Copy is very boldly and beautifully signed, placed, and dated (two days after publication) in black pen-marker on the title page by the author: "Michael Cunningham November 12, 2015 NYC". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a bookplate. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed, placed, and post-publication dated copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Cunningham launched the book in a one-time-only appearance in New York City, and did not tour to promote the book. So the publisher issued a limited number of signed bookplates to satisfy public demand. A rare signed copy thus. "A Home At The End of The World" was selected as one of "The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950" by The Modern Library, the most prestigious list of its kind for the period 1950-1999. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and The Pen/Faulkner Award in 1999 for "The Hours". One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER COPY OF THIS TITLE AND MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0374290253. Seller Inventory # 20194

Bibliographic Details

Title: A WILD SWAN AND OTHER TALES - Rare Pristine ...

Publisher: New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015

Publication Date: 2015

Binding: Hardcover

Illustrator: Shimizu, Yuko

Condition: As New

Dust Jacket Condition: As New

Signed: Signed by Author

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Fairy tales for our times from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours

A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away―the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder―are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation.
Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.
Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

About the Author:

Michael Cunningham is the author of seven novels, including A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, and By Nightfall, as well as Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown. He lives in New York.

Yuko Shimizu is a Japanese illustrator based in New York, whose work has been featured in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Her first self-titled monograph was released from Gestalten in 2011; her first children's book illustrations appeared in Barbed Wire Baseball, written by Marissa Moss. Shimizu teaches illustration at the School of Visual Arts.