The Day Of The Locust
first edition
1950 · New York
by WEST, NATHANAEL
New York: New Directions, 1950. First Edition - Thus. Hardbound. From the library of Abby Perelman, the niece of Nathanael West and daughter of the great American humorist, author, and screenwriter S.J. Perelman and Laura Perelman, Nathanael West’s sister. With Abby’s signature “Abby Perelman ‘53” on the front free endpaper. With an introduction by Richard B. Gehman. Very good copy with some slight edge wear to the green cloth in a torn and dust soiled dust jacket with fading to the spine. The basis of the classic Hollywood film directed by John Schlesinger, starring Karen Black, Donald Sutherland, Burgess Meredith, William Atherton, Geraldine Page, Richard Dysart, and Bo Hopkins. Romance, film industry intrigue, alcoholism, and blind ambition - what’s not to love? As Dorothy Parker, from direct experience of all of the above, once commented: “It’s brilliant, savage, and arresting - a truly good novel.” Sidney Joseph Perelman, popularly known as S. J. Perelman (1904 – 1979), was one of the most widely read literary icons of the Golden Age of American Humor. His New Yorker pieces, fiction, and collected essays are legendary for their biting wit and mastery of caricature and language. He was the brother-in-law of the writer Nathanael West with whom he shared a close relationship up until West’s death in a car accident in 1940 at age thirty-seven, and whose memory and literary reputation he devoted himself to maintaining. (Inventory #: 18746E)