WISE BLOOD

O'Connor, Flannery

Published by Signet / New American Library, (New York), 1953

Very scarce signed first paperback edition, review copy, of O'Connor's acclaimed first novel. "All comic novels that are any good," O'Connor wrote in a later preface, "must be about matters of life and death." WISE BLOOD's comedy and cruelty provoke mirth without ease: afflicting the comfortable, certainly; comforting the afflicted, perhaps. Discomfited Rinehart editor John Selby dared to offer O'Connor an editorial letter with suggested revisions to an early draft, which exasperated O'Connor into a flat refusal to compromise "Whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mention [.] I am not writing a conventional novel" and eventually drove the "stiff-necked, uncooperative and unethical" (Selby) author to a much more congenial partnership with Robert Giroux of Harcourt, Brace & Co., which published the first edition. The Signet paperback offers a gaudy pulp alternative to the tasteful Harcourt jacket design, but retains the back-cover photo in which the author "looked as if I had just bitten my grandmother." An attractive copy of a scarce edition, rarely signed. 7'' x 4.25''. Original pictorial wrappers. All edges tinted red. 143, [1] pages. Original publisher's review slip laid in. Signed by O'Connor on title page. Light edgewear. Seller Inventory # 51848

Bibliographic Details

Title: WISE BLOOD
Publisher: Signet / New American Library, (New York)
Publication Date: 1953
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Very good plus.
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: First printing.