This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/1/2023
[McMURTRY, Larry (1936-2021), his copy]. HELLER, Joseph (1923–1999). Catch–22. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.
8vo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in white (red top stain mostly faded, spine sunned, light spotting to covers); original price-clipped dust jacket with a photograph of Heller on the rear panel by Seymour Linden (chipped at head). Provenance: Larry McMurtry (his bookplate, which he designed, features the horseshoe-shaped brand his father and grandfather used on the McMurtry cattle), from his personal library at his home in Archer City.
FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR’S FIRST BOOK that is considered one of the most significant works of protest literature, introducing the famous phrase coined by Heller into the English language. Heller “does not work in the great American tradition of bitter realism. His approach is satirical but is also surrealistic, absurd, even lunatic. But the aim is serious enough– to show the mess of war” (Burgess, 99 Novels, p. 79).