The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos (Signed)

Edited and with a biographical narrative by Townsend Ludington

Published by Gambit, Boston, 1973

About this Item

Stated First Printing, First Edition. Once listed, I believe this will be the Only signed trade edition. There was a signed Limited Edition and a number of those copies are for sale. Here, the signed inscription is on the half-title page. It reads: 'August 24, 1974, To the Coles, Dos needs loyal supporters like us all. Many thanks for your interest-- Best Always, Towny.' Towny was Townsend's nickname. 'Dos' was Dos Passos'. You can see the covers in the photos. They have some dust staining on the blue part of the front and rear cover. The silver lettering on the front the gilt lettering on the spine are both nicely bright. The cover edges are in very good shape, no rubbing. Same thing with the corners. There is a speck of a spot on the red part of the front cover and two such specks on the red part of the rear cover. The top page edge is red. The page edges look good. The middle one has some very light spotting. The spine has a moderate rearward lean. There is also a moderate-sized space between the top part of the spine and the textblock. This creates a little bit of puffiness around the top edge of the spine. The spine ends have just the lightest bit of crinkling. The signed page has some light spotting off its bottom and middle edges, mostly around the bottom corner (see photo). I don't see any of that anywhere else in the book, nothing on the rear end paper. When you look down at the middle page edge you will notice a little swerve just off the bottom edge. It doesn't cause any creasing on the pages, but you'll notice the bottom corners are a very slightly turned upward, not enough to have caused a crease to occur. There is an unrelated and fairly light bottom corner crease between pages 599 and 632. I'm not finding any top corner creases. There are no placeholder creases. The inside covers and end papers are red. They are very clean. The paper of the rear inside cover extends a tiny bit beyond the rear covers middle edge. If you are handy you could trim it. The book is very solidly bound from cover to cover with nicely tight pages throughout and nicely tight covers as well. The covers do bow out very slightly. The pages are exceptionally clean. Scrolling through, I'm not discovering any soiling. There are no markings in the book. No attachments of any kind. And Mr. Ludington's signed inscription is the only writing to be found anywhere. You can see the dust jacket in the first few photos. It is very clean. The front and rear are a light green. The spine appears to have been sunned to a silver color. The jacket has a moderate amount of wear, a tiny chip and a few very small tears off the top edge of the spine, a tiny chip off the bottom edge of the spine, a thin tear off the front bottom edge just adjacent to the spine, a tiny tear off the front top edge, a little crinkling around the edges. The flaps are in pretty good shape. They are clean. There are two creases below the rear flap's top corner, one below the front flap's top corner. The jacket will be fitted with a protective cover after the photos are scanned.

Seller Inventory # 005276

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos (Signed)
• Publisher: Gambit, Boston
• Publication Date: 1973
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature
  • Autobiography, Memoir
  • Signed Biography, Autobiography