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The 158-Pound Marriage
by Irving, John
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very good +
- ISBN 10
- 0394484142
- ISBN 13
- 9780394484143
- Seller
-
Arvada, Colorado, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Random House, 1974. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very good +. First edition, first printing (Stated first edition with number row starting with 2). SIGNED by Irving in blue ink on half-title page with Shaw above Irving. Green boards slightly faded at bottom of cloth spine and light creases top of spine. Light trace of erasure on front free endpaper. Dust jacket with price intact has a four-inch crease on the flap and a couple of tiny corner rubs.
Synopsis
The 158-Pound Marriage, author John Irving's third published novel, revolves around an unidentified narrator, a college professor, and a mediocre novelist. The narrator met his wife Utch, an orphaned survivor of WWII, in Vienna while doing research. They are a relatively happy couple; their family rounded out by two children. At a faculty party, they meet Severin Winter, a Viennese-born professor and coach of the college wrestling team, and his wife, Edith. The couple's interests (Edith is an aspiring fiction writer, and Severin has a commonality with Utch's upbringing in Austria) and resulting infatuations between the couples lead to after-dinner partner-swapping. At first, the swinging goes smoothly, but eventually, uneven feelings and obsessions throw the couples off track. The title, The 158-Pound Marriage , refers to the 158-pound weight class in wrestling, which Severin, the coach, feels is the most competitive. The book is small, only 176 pages, compared to Irving's later weighty tomes, like the 610 page The World According to Garp ( 1978) and The Cider House Rules (1985), which is 973 pages.
Read More: Identifying first editions of The 158-Pound Marriage
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Details
- Bookseller
- Old Algonquin Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 15581
- Title
- The 158-Pound Marriage
- Author
- Irving, John
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very good +
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition
- ISBN 10
- 0394484142
- ISBN 13
- 9780394484143
- Publisher
- Random House
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1974
- Keywords
- modern firsts, signed.
- Bookseller catalogs
- Fiction & Literature;
Terms of Sale
Old Algonquin Books
Books are sent in the U.S. via media mail unless requested otherwise. We accept returns in same condition within three weeks for any reason (please email first) and the price of the book will be refunded. If we have misdescribed the book, postage both ways will also be refunded.
About the Seller
Old Algonquin Books
Biblio member since 2006
Arvada, Colorado
About Old Algonquin Books
Old Algonquin Books. owned by John and Helen Dunning, was an open store in Denver from 1984-1994. and has been an online business since then. Member: Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Association (RMABA).All books with dust jackets have removable mylar covers on the jackets unless otherwise noted. First edition also means first printing unless otherwise noted.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
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