To Kill a Mockingbird [inscribed and dated by Harper Lee]

HARPER LEE (1926?2016) To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia and New York: Harper & Row, [1993]. Later printing. Octavo, 296 pages. ISBN 0-397-00151-7. Publisher?s cloth-backed boards; original, unclipped publisher?s dust jacket retaining the $23.00 price. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY HARPER LEE in blue ink on the front free endpaper: ?To Pat with best wishes, Harper Lee 1993? A handsome dated presentation copy of one of the defining American novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1960 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, To Kill a Mockingbird combines Scout Finch?s retrospective childhood narration with a searching account of race, law, family, conscience, and community in Depression-era Alabama. Written during the modern civil-rights era, the novel?s 1930s setting gives it a deliberately layered historical perspective; its continuing place in classrooms, courts, public debate, film, and theatre has made it both a cultural landmark and a work of enduring interpretive tension. This 1993 copy is not the 1960 first edition. Its distinction is the author?s full presentation inscription, signed and dated in the year of publication of this issue. Lee was famously private, and inscribed copies remain especially desirable when, as here, the inscription joins the recipient, a cordial sentiment, the author?s full signature, and the date. The recipient is identified only as ?Pat?; no closer association is claimed. The original 1993 dust jacket reprises the celebrated red, black, and white tree design, here with the Pulitzer Prize roundel, and retains its publisher?s price. The Lippincott name at the foot of the jacket spine is correct for this publisher-issued jacket and reflects the book?s continuing Lippincott/Harper publishing history, not an assembled or supplied jacket. Condition Book: Scattered foxing/spotting to the endpapers, visible in the photographs; otherwise no material defect has been noted in the available condition record; Dust jacket: Unclipped, with the $23.00 price present. Light rubbing and edgewear, with small nicks, short closed tears, and shallow chipping/loss concentrated at the spine ends, upper edge, and fore-corners. The jacket remains bright and presents well. Please inspect the photographs, which form part of the condition description. Authenticity and Provenance The inscription is guaranteed authentic by Atelier Zweig. Documentary provenance is retained in our records and may be supplied privately to the purchaser. A transparent, collector-grade copy: a later printing, clearly described as such, distinguished by a full Harper Lee presentation inscription dated 1993 and preserved in its correct, price-retaining publisher?s dust jacket. Atelier Zweig L314.…