Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$100.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 8vo. Pp. x; 273. Bound in green cloth with darker green lettering stamped on front cover and spine. A bit of fading to extremities of cover; dust jacket with chips, and loss along the crease between the front panel and the front flap. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper. Inscribed by Porter to Edward Parone, theater director and a member of Albee-Barr-Wilder Playwrights Unit. Parone's blindstamp is stamped on the FFEP, with his signature on the front pastedown.Parone worked with those playwrights, and mentored other future-luminaries including Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and Sam Shepard. In addition, Parone was a poet, and was published in "The New Yorker" and other prominent literary publications. Inscription reads: "For E. P. / P, Incomme (unintelligible) ! /With Good Wishes / Katherine Anne Porter / 17 December 1952 / New York". This collection of critical essays has them categorized in three sections: "Critical," "Personal and Particular" and "Mexican," the latter being Porter's writings on Mexico and Mexicans. Porter was born near San Antonio and as a child watched a street battle between Maderistas and Federal troops, from the window of a cathedral. As for lit-crit, Porter addresses the work of Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Willa Cather, Ezra Pound, Katherine Mansfield, For Madox Ford, Edith Sitwell, et al. Dust jacket is now preserved in a clear, removable archival protector.
Seller: Long Brothers Fine & Rare Books, ABAA, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Porter, Katherine Anne. The Days Before (Signed Copy). Harcourt Brace, New York, 1952.
Price: US$120.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Stated first edition. A collection of non-fiction writings. This copy SIGNED by the author on the front flyleaf. A very good copy in green cloth binding in very good unclipped dustwrapper with some small tape marks to verso. Some light dampstaing near base of spine.
Seller: Derringer Books, Member ABAA, Avon, CT, U.S.A.
Porter, Katherine Anne. The Days Before. Harcourt Brace & Co., New York, 1952.
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First printing of first edition. Signed by the author on front endpage. Very Good in a Very Good dust jacket. There is a faint, approximately 1/4" x 1/8" dampstain affecting top edge of first 20 pages, front jacket flap and top of front board. A tight square copy. Text bright, corners sharp. DJ has a single chip at head of spine and one at foot of spine, plus a 1/8" tear at top of front panel. Original $4.00 price intact on front flap.
Seller: Brazos Bend Books, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
Porter, Katherine Anne. The Days Before. Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1952.
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 273 pages; inscribed and signed on the front endpaper by the author to collector Burt Britton, additionally inscribed and initialed by the author on the half-title page; "First Edition" stated on copyright page; Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) American novelist and short-story writer, a master stylist whose long short stories have a richness of texture and complexity of character delineation usually achieved only in the novel.(Merriam Literature); (From the dustjacket information): ".first collection of non-fiction writing she has done over thirty years.a remarkable self-portrait in terms of her public beliefs and private enthusiasms, her real life and the life of her imagination."; some dustjacket edge, tips wear and darkening, back panel with a small (1/4") hole at bottom edge; a couple of interior leaves a bit edge-worn, larger, probably a publisher's defect; overall, good condition.
Seller: Certain Books, ABAA, Bolivia, NC, U.S.A.
Porter, Katherine Anne.. The Days Before.. NY. Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1952., 1952.
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. With stated "First Edition" on the copyright page. And "Printed in the United States of America." Signed/Presentation copy by Katharine Anne Porter: Inscribed-- "To Lois Odell with best wishes. Katherine Anne Porter 14 November 1952 New York" in brown ink on the front endpaper. VG+/VG+ in finely woven blue-green cloth stamped in dark blue with light sunfading at the bottom and top edges of the boards. In an attractive white dust jacket featuring a pencil sketch of Katherine Anne Porter on the front panel. With the original price of $4.00 at the top of the inside front flap. Short tear at the top of the spine. First Edition. With stated "First Edition" on the copyright page. And "Printed in the United States of America."
Seller: Brainerd Phillipson Rare Books, Holliston, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$375.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Edition. Original green cloth, near fine, with slight fading along edges, in fine dust jacket with the original price intact on the front flap. Exceptional presentation: "My sweet cousin Gertrude I wish my work might be as beautiful as you, and your life - All my love Katherine Anne Porter 26th September 1952 New York."
Seller: sonalsorises, los angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$750.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First printing of the stated first edition. Signed presentation by Katerine Anne Porter directly on the front-free endpage: " "For Doris Grumback / Critic, and I mean a / real one, and a brave / one. Live Long! / Katherine Anne Porter/ 11 November 1975." Doris Grumbach is an American novelist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. Book with light tanning to spine and cover edge, light toning to endpapers, and cloth overlay at spine ends gently crimped; dust jacket with toning to spine, price clipped, short closed tear/crease to upper back cover, and mild shelf wear, else fine.
Seller: Idler Fine Books, Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.