PHILIP ROTH: WHY WRITE? : COLLECTED NONFICTION 1960-2013 - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Library of America Slipcased Edition/First Printing - ONLY COPY OF THE EDITION ONLINE

Roth, Philip (Author) & Miller, Ross (Editor)

ISBN 10: 1598535404 / ISBN 13: 9781598535402

Published by New York City, NY: The Library Of America, 2017, 2017

About this Item

1st Printing. 450 pages. Published in 2017. Volume Ten of The Library of America's definitive Collected Works of Philip Roth. The First Slipcased Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a Slipcased Edition for distribution to libraries and LOA subscribers only. None of the copies was sold to the public. The Slipcased Edition has the same ISBN as the regular trade edition. The Slipcased Edition is now rare. Printed to the highest standards on acid-free paper, utilizing sewn binding, closely woven rayon cloth boards, satin bound-in ribbon marker, and a page layout that is both readable and elegant, each volume is guaranteed to last for several generations of readers and collectors (despite frequent and regular use, the estimated life span of Library of America Editions is 1000 years; un-used, they will last forever). Each volume is scrupulously edited and annotated by Ross Miller. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Volume Ten of The Collected Works of Philip Roth: "Why Write? : Collected Nonfiction 1960-2013". A necessary - and delightful - afterthought, the tenth and final volume in the LOA Series. Why? Because it is the "definitive edition of his essential statements on literature, his controversial novels, and the writing life" (Publisher's blurb). In addition to the final versions of "Reading Myself And Others" and "Shop Talk" is "Explanations", fourteen pieces brought together for the very first time. There's more: Two full-length Interviews Roth gave after his retirement, which appear in book form in this edition only. Philip Roth was only the third writer to be so honored by The Library of America while still alive. Published in chronological order, the entire oeuvre consists of ten volumes in all and will surely be regarded as one of the "high spots" in The Library of America Series. Roth famously announced in 2012 that he has permanently stopped writing. The later pieces in this collection show that, aside from the need to clear up some nagging questions (such as his New Yorker Magazine essay attacking Wikipedia), he kept his word. Philip Roth died on May 22, 2018 of congestive heart failure, literally of heartbreak, at the age of 85. An absolute "must-have" title for Philip Roth collectors. This title is a great collection. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the First Library of America Slipcased Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare copy thus. Six of Philip Roth's novels were selected as among the Top 20 works of American fiction of the last 25 years: "American Pastoral", "The Counterlife", "Operation Shylock", "Sabbath's Theater", "The Human Stain", and "The Plot Against America". One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER PHILIP ROTH TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 1598535404.

Seller Inventory # 23083

Bibliographic Details

• Title: PHILIP ROTH: WHY WRITE? : COLLECTED NONFICTION 1960-2013 - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Library of America Slipcased Edition/First Printing - ONLY COPY OF THE EDITION ONLINE
• Publisher: New York City, NY: The Library Of America, 2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1598535404
• ISBN 13: 9781598535402
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: None, As Issued
• Signed: no

About this title

Synopsis

America’s most celebrated writer returns with a definitive edition of his essential statements on literature, his controversial novels, and the writing life, including including six pieces published here for the first time and many others newly revised.

Throughout a unparalleled literary career that includes two National Book Awards (Goodbye, Columbus, 1959 and Sabbath’s Theater, 1995), the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (American Pastoral, 1997), the National Book Critics Circle Award (The Counterlife, 1986), and the National Humanities Medal (awarded by President Obama in 2011), among many other honors, Philip Roth has produced an extraordinary body of nonfiction writing on a wide range of topics: his own work and that of the writers he admires, the creative process, and the state of American culture. This work is collected for the first time in Why Write?, the tenth and final volume in the Library of America’s definitive Philip Roth edition. Here is Roth’s selection of the indispensable core of Reading Myself and Others, the entirety of the 2001 book Shop Talk, and “Explanations,” a collection of fourteen later pieces brought together here for the first time, six never before published. Among the essays gathered are “My Uchronia,” an account of the genesis of The Plot Against America, a novel grounded in the insight that “all the assurances are provisional, even here in a two-hundred-year-old democracy”; “Errata,” the unabridged version of the “Open Letter to Wikipedia” published on The New Yorker’s website in 2012 to counter the online encyclopedia’s egregious errors about his life and work; and “The Ruthless Intimacy of Fiction,” a speech delivered on the occasion of his eightieth birthday that celebrates the “refractory way of living” of Sabbath’s Theater’s Mickey Sabbath. Also included are two lengthy interviews given after Roth’s retirement, which take stock of a lifetime of work.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

About the Author

In 1997, Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral and in 2002 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and Saul Bellow, among others. He has twice won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award three times. His collected works have been published in a definitive ten-volume edition by the Library of America.