Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$720.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Bound in black cloth over white boardrs, stamped in silver, housed in a redi and white illustrated dust jacket. A tight, clean, unread copy of this, the first edition of the Japanese author's third book -- Boldly signed by the author on the title page. A 327 pp. book of short stories.
Seller: Michael J. Toth, Bookseller, ABAA, Springtown, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Description: First Printing. Octavo (22cm); pale grey paper-covered boards and black cloth backstrip, with titles stamped in silver on spine; dustjacket; [viii],[4],5-327,[1]pp. Signed by the author on the front endpaper in a contemporary hand, in English and Japanese, dated about a month after publication. Faint foxing to upper edge of textblock, with a hint of sunning to upper board edges; very Near Fine in a Fine, unclipped dustjacket (priced $21.00). Murakami's third English-language publication and his first collection of short fiction, gathering 17 stories, including "The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday's Women," "Sleep," "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning," and "TV People." Murakami has always been a reluctant signer who does very few publicity events; contemporary signatures in early titles are uncommon. Rubin 16.
Seller: Captain Ahab's Rare Books, ABAA, Stephenson, VA, U.S.A.
Murakami, Haruki. The Elephant Vanishes.. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1993.
Price: US$1800.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of this classic collection of stories, one of which was the basis for the 2018 acclaimed film Burning. Octavo, original boards. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, "To Karen Haruki Murakami (in both Japanese and English) 5/6/93 Princeton, NJ." Additionally signed three times by jacket designer Chip Kidd, once on the front panel, above Murakami's signature and on the jacket rear panel. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Chip Kidd. Translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum and Jay Rubin. In these stories, a man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonaldâs in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard. By turns haunting and hilarious, in The Elephant Vanishes Murakami crosses the border between separate realitiesâ"and comes back bearing remarkable treasures. âThese stories show us Japan as itâs experienced from the inside. . . . [They] take place in parallel worlds not so much remote from ordinary life as hidden within its surfaces. . . . Even in the slipperiest of Mr. Murakamiâs stories, pinpoints of detail flash out . . . warm with life, hopelesslyâ"and wonderfullyâ"unstable" (The New York Times Book Review).
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.