The Names (First Edition)

New York: Knopf, 1982. First edition (stated). First printing. Quarter cream cloth over light-brown paper-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt. 8vo. 339 pp. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket is price clipped but otherwise fresh and bright. A clean, tight copy. Protected in an archival-quality mylar jacket cover. The seventh novel by American novelist (not counting "Amazons" Don DeLillo, published in 1982. The novel, set mostly in Greece, is primarily a series of character studies, interwoven with a plot about a mysterious "language cult" that is behind a number of unexplained murders. A novel which grows in stature in time. In his 1987 book-length study of DeLillo's works up to that point, Tom LeClair lauded The Names as DeLillo's finest work. David Cowart said the same, in 2008. In 2007, The Names was listed in New York magazine as one of the author's supreme achievements, along with White Noise, Libra, and Pafko at the Wall.