GOING TO THE TERRITORY

New York: Random House, (1986). First edition. ASSOCIATION COPY with printed Random House "WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE AUTHOR" card affixed to front endpaper, above which is written "John A. Kouwenhoven / from Ralph Ellison / July 3, 1986" (in Kouwenhoven's hand). John Atlee Kouwenhoven (1909-1990) was the author of many works about American arts and society including THE BEER CAN BY THE HIGHWAY: ESSAYS ON WHAT'S AMERICAN ABOUT AMERICA (1961), which according to Arnold Rampersad (Ralph Ellison: A Biography, 2007), Ellison listed as one of his favorites on the syllabus for the first class he taught at NYU in 1971. Ellison wrote the foreword for the Johns Hopkins' 1988 reissue of THE BEER CAN ON THE HIGHWAY, praising the work as "one that springs from deep within that rich segment of the American grain which gave us the likes of Emerson and Whitman, Horatio Greenough and Constance Rourke?yes, and Mark Twain." Both men wrote on jazz and appear together in several books on the subject. Near fine with Kouwenhoven's penciled notes referring to certain pages/passages in the book on the rear endpaper; in near fine dust jacket with a touch of soiling, corners nicked and one tiny chip. INTERESTING ASSOCIATION COPY