Styles of Radical Will.

New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,, 1969. She continues to be the best there is First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For Bob - (editor & author) with love - Susan, April 2, 1969". This is a premier association, illustrating the warm relationship between one of the most notable essayists of the 20st century and Robert Giroux, the "Golden Boy of publishing" (Kachka). Although Sontag later developed "an almost conspiratorial alliance" (Gottlieb) with Roger Farrar, Giroux was her first introduction to the behemoth publishing firm. Their first meeting was a memorable one. In 1961, Sontag walked into Giroux's office, "presented him with the partial manuscript of a convoluted dream narrative, and said, 'Jason Epstein told me you're the only editor in New York who will understand my novel'". Sontag became one of the firm's most illustrious names. This was Sontag's second essay collection, following Against Interpretation (1966), and was widely praised. Lawrence M. Bensky of the New York Times hailed the originality and importance of her essays: "In the world in which she's chosen to live, she continues to be the best there is." Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in blue and red, top edge blue, pale brown textured endpapers. With dust jacket. Edges a touch foxed; jacket soiled with short closed tear at head of front panel, unclipped: a near-fine copy in very good jacket. Lawrence M. Bensky, "Susan Sontag, Indignant, Stoical, Complex, Useful - and Moral", The New York Times, 13 July 1969; Robert Gottleib, "Anatomy of a Publisher", The New Yorker, 5 August 2013; Boris Kachka, Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America's Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013.