CLOSE RANGE: WYOMING STORIES - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed by Annie Proulx - SIGNED ON THE TITLE PAGE

Proulx, Annie (Author) & Matthews, William (Artist)

ISBN 10: 0684852217 / ISBN 13: 9780684852218

Published by New York City, NY: Scribner's, 1999, 1999

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 283 pages. Published in 1999. The author's second collection of short stories. One of the greatest short story collections of our time. 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 that sold out shortly after publication. The First Edition is now scarce. A brilliant production by William Matthews: Regular-sized volume format. Black hard boards with green cloth spine and metallic-silver titles embossed on spine, as issued. Stories by Annie Proulx. Interspersed with six watercolor reproductions by William Matthews, the finest artist in the Western genre of our time. Printed on pristine-white, archival stock paper (for the text) and glossy stock paper (for the art) in the United States to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with black titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Annie Proulx's "Close Range: Wyoming Stories". Eleven stories, two of which are now regarded as masterpieces written at the close of the 20th century: "The Half-Skinned Steer" was selected as one of "The Best American Short Stories of the 20th Century" by John Updike. "Brokeback Mountain" was issued in the United Kingdom by itself, remains one of Proulx's most controversial and most beautiful stories, and is the basis of the great film by Ang Lee, with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. "Annie Proulx demonstrates what makes her great: Images sharp as paper cuts conveyed in language so imaginative and compressed, a sense of character so specific it takes only a sentence to establish a whole life and the underlying promise of something utterly unexpected up ahead". An absolute "must-have" title for Annie Proulx collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Annie Proulx. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page, as copies available online are. This title is a great book. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Annie Proulx's signature is TINY. Because of "Brokeback Mountain", this title has become one of Annie Proulx's most collectible titles: A signed and inscribed copy fetched $3000 at auction in 2005, an incredible sum by any measure. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1993 for "Postcards". Winner of the National Book Award in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for "The Shipping News". One of the finest writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ANNIE PROULX TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0684852217.

Seller Inventory # 13291

Bibliographic Details

• Title: CLOSE RANGE: WYOMING STORIES - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed by Annie Proulx - SIGNED ON THE TITLE PAGE
• Publisher: New York City, NY: Scribner's, 1999
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684852217
• ISBN 13: 9780684852218
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author

About this title

Synopsis

Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Shipping News and Barkskins, showcases her “gritty and gleaming” (The New York Times Book Review) writing in Close Range, one of the most celebrated story collections of all time—includes “Brokeback Mountain.”

Annie Proulx’s masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In “The Mud Below,” a rodeo rider’s obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In “The Half-Skinned Steer,” an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home. In the iconic story “Brokeback Mountain,” the difficult affair between two cowboys survives everything but the world’s intolerance.

These are stories of desperation, hard times, and unlikely elation, set in a landscape both brutal and magnificent. Enlivened by folk tales, flights of fancy, and details of ranch and rural work, they juxtapose Wyoming’s traditional character and attitudes—confrontation of tough problems, prejudice, persistence in the face of difficulty—with the more benign values of the new west.

Stories in Close Range have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and GQ. They have been selected for the O. Henry Stories 1998, The Best American Short Stories of the Century, and A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker and have won the National Magazine Award for Fiction. This is work by an author writing at the peak of her craft.

About the Author

Annie Proulx is the author of eleven books, including the novels The Shipping News, Accordion Crimes, and Barkskins, and the story collection Close Range. Her many honors include a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and two O. Henry prizes. Her story “Brokeback Mountain,” which originally appeared in The New Yorker, was made into an Academy Award–winning film. She lives in Vermont.