THE FORMS OF FICTION. by Gardner, John And Lennis Dunlap - 1962

New York: Random House, 1962. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good+. Large Octavo. John Gardner's first book. A very good+ copy bound in yellow paper covered boards. Minimal cover edge wear, spotting top edge. No dust jacket as issued. x, 657 pp.

New York: Random House, 1966. Hardcover. Very Good. Fifth printing. Spine rubbed, very good, lacking the rare dustwrapper. Nicholas Delbanco's copy, with his address sticker applied to the front pastedown. Gardner and acclaimed novelist and critic Delbanco first forged a friendship when Delbanco hosted Gardner during a reading tour at Bennington College in 1974. Delbanco ended up hiring Gardner for the English Department at the College. They and their families began a close professional and personal relationship in which each of the authors strove to critique the other's works in private and promote them in public, Gardner touting Delbanco as "one of the country's best novelists." Each acknowledged the contribution of the other in developing both their theories of literature and for specific elements of their respective works, whether it be Delbanco using Gardner's title *Stillness* for one of his novels or Gardner using Delbanco's writing to help clarify the husband-wife relationship in one of his… Read More

NY, Random House, 1962, first edition, first printing.. No dust jacket, this is John Gardner's first book, preceding his The Resurrection by four years, it is essentially a text book written while he was an English professor at Chico State College, Signed by Gardner, it includes John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums, pages 248-258, text from The Long Valley, Goldstone & Payne B124, not recorded by Morrow, also includes Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, and others. Very good plus.

Random House, 1962. First Edition. Hardcover. 657 pages. John Garner's first book, a textbook for English students consisting of an introductory essay on forms of fictional narratives, followed by an anthology of short stories by Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Katherine Anne Porter, Mark Twain, et al. First edition (first printing). A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. There is debate about whether this book, intended as a text book, was ever issued in a dust jacket for the first edition. In any case, this copy is very good, with some spotting to the spine, in a very good dust jacket, with light tanning to the spine and some light staining to the price-clipped dust jacket. Whether this dust jacket is original to the book, or married from a later printing, is beyond the skill of this cataloguer. Dust jackets for this book, on any printing, are vanishingly scarce. [JSP01].

New York: Random House, 1962. Hardcover. Near Fine. First edition. Printed papercovered boards. Corners rubbed, a near fine copy without dustwrapper. Nicely Inscribed by co-author John Gardner: "For Janet Turner - for reading on winter nights when no owls are out - John." Gardner's first book, a textbook. The fragile papercovered boards tend to be well-worn when encountered.

New York: Random House, 1962. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. First edition. Ownership signature of novelist Jerre Mangione, corners rubbed, a very good copy in a very good, price-clipped dustwrapper with small nicks and tears, and a bit of soiling. The author's first book, a college textbook. The only copy we've seen in a printed jacket.