This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/1/2023
[McMURTRY, Larry (1936-2021), his copy]. KESEY, Ken (1935-2001). Sometimes a Great Notion. New York: The Viking Press, [1964].
8vo. Original mottled cloth stamped in blue and green; original unclipped dust jacket (some edge chipping). 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, McMURTRY’S PERSONAL REVIEW COPY, with McMurtry’s neat pencil notation on front free endpaper “Received June 10” and the publisher’s slip laid in with a penciled notation on verso in his hand “Due July 20”. McMurtry declares himself to be in the minority of those who think that Sometimes a Great Notion is a better book than Cuckoo’s Nest, with the qualifier “that could be because I heard Cuckoo’s Nest read aloud in class, whereas the second book I reviewed and read carefully.” Laid in with newspaper clippings and a 2-pp. prospectus for the Ken Kesey Defense Fund to cover legal costs for when he and 13 of his friends were arrested on 23 April 1965 at his home in La Honda, California for possession of marijuana.