HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS AND HOW EASILY IT CAN BE BROKEN - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed by Daniel Mendelsohn - SIGNED ON THE TITLE PAGE

Mendelsohn, Daniel

ISBN 10: 0061456438 / ISBN 13: 9780061456435

Published by New York City, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008, 2008

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 456 pages. Published in 2008. The author's debut collection of literary and personal essays. Now considered a contemporary classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Daniel Mendelsohn's "How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken". His dazzling retrospective collection, which he followed up with "Waiting For The Barbarians: Essays From The Classics To Pop Culture" (2012) and "Ecstasy And Terror: From The Greeks To Game of Thrones" (2019). Written in effortless, impeccable prose with a paradoxical mix of wit and ardor, it demonstrates his unique, profound, and indispensable understanding, not just expertise, of the distant past as well as contemporary popular culture, particularly the latter's atavistic re-imaginings of the ancient world that Mendelsohn knows so well and loves so much. "Writing with a lively intelligence and arresting originality, he brings his distinctive combination of scholarly rigor and conversational ease to bear across eras, cultures, and genres. Passionately articulates the themes that have made Daniel Mendelsohn a crucial voice in today's cultural conversation on the vital importance of the great literature of the past for a meaningful life in the present. No other contemporary thinker is as engaged with as many aspects of our culture as Mendelsohn is, and no one practices the vanishing art of criticism with more acuity, humor, and feeling" (Publisher's blurb). The title is from Tennessee Williams, on the fragility of beauty as he tried to capture it in his great play, "The Glass Menagerie". For Mendelsohn, Williams' great play represents the distillation of his own worldview. An absolute "must-have" title for Daniel Mendelsohn collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Daniel Mendelsohn. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and despite its imperfection (browning on the edges because of the inferior paper used by the publisher, as may be found in almost every surviving copy) is still in especially fine condition: Every single internal page is clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Precedes and should NOT be confused with all other subsequent editions. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007 for "The Lost". One of the most brilliant writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER DANIEL MENDELSOHN TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0061456438. Seller Inventory # 23283

Bibliographic Details

Title: HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS AND HOW EASILY IT CAN BE...

Publisher: New York City, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008

Publication Date: 2008

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed by Author

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition, disarming emotionality, and tart wit. Now How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken reveals all at once the enormous stature of Mendelsohn's achievement and demonstrates why he is considered one of our greatest critics. Writing with a lively intelligence and arresting originality, he brings his distinctive combination of scholarly rigor and conversational ease to bear across eras, cultures, and genres, from Roman games to video games.

His interpretations of our most talked-about films—from the work of Pedro Almodóvar to Brokeback Mountain, from United 93 and World Trade Center to 300, Marie Antoinette, and The Hours—have sparked debate and changed the way we watch movies. Just as stunning and influential are his dispatches on theater and literature, from The Producers to Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, from The Lovely Bones to the works of Harold Pinter. Together these thirty brilliant and engaging essays passionately articulate the themes that have made Daniel Mendelsohn a crucial voice in today's cultural conversation: the aesthetic and indeed political dangers of imposing contemporary attitudes on the great classics; the ruinous effect of sentimentality on the national consciousness in the post-9/11 world; the vital importance of the great literature of the past for a meaningful life in the present.

How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken makes it clear that no other contemporary thinker is as engaged with as many aspects of our culture and its influences as Mendelsohn is, and no one practices the vanishing art of popular criticism with more acuity, humor, and feeling.

About the Author:

Daniel Mendelsohn a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, is the author of the international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. He teaches at Bard College.