THE PILGRIM HAWK: A LOVE STORY

New York City, NY: Harper & Row, 1966. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Harper & Row, 1966. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 127 pages. Facsimile Reissued Edition of the author's novel. One of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. Promotional Copy of the 1966 First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the 1970 Edition and the 2001 NYRB Softcover Edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. Except for its blue cloth boards, the edition is exactly the same as the 1940 First Edition, which is in red cloth boards. As such, the Copyright Page mentions only the latter. There is no ISBN. The First Edition Thus is now rare. A brilliant production by Harper & Row: Regular-sized volume format. Pale blue cloth boards with gilt-silver facsimile of the author's signature on the cover and matching gilt-silver titles on the spine, as issued. Text by Glenway Wescott. Printed on archival stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Almost sixty years later, the paper remains near-pristine. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Re-presents, in a lovely format, Glenway Wescott's "The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story". His undisputed masterpiece. Speak, Memory: Incidents that took place in the space of a few hours on an otherwise uneventful afternoon are recounted with descriptive power and vivid detail twenty years later. Having left an indelible impression on him, the narrator vividly remembers every small incident, every tiny particle, of the one afternoon involving a couple, the wife bearing a pilgrim hawk perched, spectacularly and provocatively, on her arm. In her effort to re-locate the novel where it belongs, in the American literary pantheon, Susan Sontag wrote one of her best essays about it, and then made it the eponymous essay of her final collection: "Where The Stress Falls" (2001). The NYRB Reissued Softcover Edition has an interesting Introduction by esteemed Michael Cunningham. "Truly a work of art, of the kind so very rarely achieved" (Christopher Isherwood). An absolute "must-have" title for Glenway Wescott collectors. This is a Promotional Copy. The Publisher's Calling Card has survived, is encased in its own protective plastic sleeve, and laid-in. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only Promotional Copy of the First Edition Thus/First Printing (1966) available online and despite its imperfection (a small closed tear on top of the DJ, but it's there) is still in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Although it was issued as such, the publisher did NOT mark the copy with the "Not For Sale" stamp, the normal practice of the time. Copies available online have very serious flaws. In particular, this is NOT price-clipped, as most copies of the edition available online are. A rare copy thus. One of the finest American writers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER GLENWAY WESCOTT TITLE IN OUR CATALOG).