PHILIP ROTH: THE BIOGRAPHY - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Double-Signed by Blake Bailey And Other Eminence - ONLY SUCH SIGNED COPY ONLINE

Roth, Philip (Subject) & Bailey, Blake (Author)

ISBN 10: 039324072X / ISBN 13: 9780393240726

Published by New York City, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021, 2021

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 912 pages. Published in 2021. Massive Biography on subject. One of the greatest literary biographies ever written in our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. ALL of the latter were published abroad only. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. In fact, MOST copies were subsequently and hurriedly destroyed by Norton, which feared a massive boycott from censor-activists on the Left. This was, in effect, nothing less than an unprecedented assault on free speech - that inevitably and unwittingly resulted in an ongoing and effective backlash from the Right, sadly derailing the Feminist/"MeToo" Movement as a result. Presents Blake Bailey's "Philip Roth: The Biography". The beleaguered and hapless author's indisputably best book: "A narrative masterwork" (Cynthia Ozick). "Shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of fame" (Publisher's blurb). Among Roth's many achievements: His masterly and unsurpassable novels, which Blake Bailey discusses in lucent detail. An absolute "must-have" title for Philip Roth and Blake Bailey collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Blake Bailey. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page or bookplate. It is also very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen by one of Philip Roth's lifelong friends (who cannot be named here) upon the page where his close friendship with the writer is specifically discussed by Blake Bailey. Which makes this signed copy quite special indeed. This title is a great book. This is the only such double-signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare double-signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with lovely vintage plates. Six of Philip Roth's novels were selected as among the Top 20 works of American fiction of the last 25 years: "American Pastoral", "The Counterlife", "Operation Shylock", "Sabbath's Theater", "The Human Stain", and "The Plot Against America". Two of the greatest writers, Roth and Bailey both, of the 20th century and our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER PHILIP ROTH AND BLAKE BAILEY TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 039324072X.

Seller Inventory # 23943

Bibliographic Details

• Title: PHILIP ROTH: THE BIOGRAPHY - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Double-Signed by Blake Bailey And Other Eminence - ONLY SUCH SIGNED COPY ONLINE
• Publisher: New York City, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 039324072X
• ISBN 13: 9780393240726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Signed: Signed by Author

About this title

Synopsis

New York Times Bestseller

The renowned biographer’s definitive portrait of a literary titan.

Appointed by Philip Roth and granted independence and complete access, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth’s personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the postwar literary scene.

Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of literary fame, how his career was nearly derailed by his catastrophic first marriage, and how he championed the work of dissident novelists behind the Iron Curtain.

Bailey examines Roth’s rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike, and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love life, culminating in his almost-twenty-year relationship with actress Claire Bloom, who pilloried Roth in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Doll’s House.

Tracing Roth’s path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth’s engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.

100 photographs

About the Author

Blake Bailey is the author of biographies of John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Charles Jackson. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, and a finalist for the Pulitzer and James Tait Black Prizes. His previous book, The Splendid Things We Planned, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. He lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.