The Coral Sea

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 Illustrated with black-and-white photos by Robert Mapplethorpe. First paperback edition, first printing. Signed by Smith on half-title page. Publisher's tan wrappers, with front wrapper design by Chris Welch, photo of Smith attributed to Annie Leibovitz to rear wrapper, lettered in black, and ruled in red. Near fine, with some slight bowing to edges of wrappers, and a hint of toning to wrapper edges. Overall, an attractive copy of this elegiac work. The Coral Sea is Patti Smith's poetic processing of the death of her close friend and lover Robert Mapplethorpe. In linked prose pieces, she writes of a dying artist traveling to see the Southern Cross. Smith and Mapplethorpe's relationship was at the center of Smith's National Book Award-winning memoir, Just Kids (2010). In Smith's "To the Reader" section at the beginning of The Coral Sea, she writes, "When [Robert] passed away I could not weep so I wrote. Then I took the pages and set them away. Here are those pages, my farewell to my friend, my adventure, my unfettered joy." . Signed by Author. First Paperback Edition. Paperback. Near Fine. Illus. by Mapplethorpe, Robert.