Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$75.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: SIGNED by the Author on the free front endpaper, 8vo, beige cloth with gold lettering on spine & embossed cover, Mylar-protected pictorial dust jacket (unclipped) with etching by Thomas O'Donohue & 9 more in-text full page sepia illustrations, 312 numbered & deckled pages + [313-14] sepia-toned illustration by O'Donohue + [315-16] + [2] A Note on Type. John Gardner (1933 - 1982) was an American novelist, essayist, literary critic and university professor. He is best known for his 1971 novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the monster's point of view. A tour de force! Gardner's other highly respected novels include The Sunlight Dialogues, about a disaffected policeman asked to engage a madman fluent in classical mythology; Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf legend from the monster's point of view, with an existential subtext; and October Light, about an embittered brother and sister living and feuding with each other in rural Vermont (the novel includes an invented "trashy novel" the woman reads). This last book won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976. Nickel Mountain is his Gothic novel about backcountry folks from the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Set during the mid-1950's, they struggle through ordeals of despair and religious doubt. Middle-aged Henry Soames, who is overweight and suffering from heart trouble, runs a diner where locals gather. After teenage Callie Wells begins working there, she becomes pregnant by a boy she had trusted--but who abandons her. She and Henry come to one another's aide and decide to marry. Unfortunately, after her son is born, their relationship becomes strained on several levels. Dread pervades the gloomy mountain and characters. A dark lesson seems to be that despite one's protectiveness for loved ones, ultimately, we can't protect them. People destroy one other without meaning to. It's a lesson from the author's youth, when he felt protracted guilt for his brother's accidental death on a farm. Even so, suggestions of Redemption slowly emerge from this wild heart of the Catskills. Gardner was killed in a motorcycle accident on September 14, 1982. SUPERIOR COPY: clean, tight, bright in a spotless dust jacket. The book has two small defects: the free front endpaper has its upper right corner clipped; there is a small red remainder stamp on the bottom of the pages.
Seller: Borg Antiquarian, Lake Forest, IL, U.S.A.
GARDNER, John. The Sunlight Dialogues. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1973.
Price: US$150.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Sixth printing. Fine in a very good dustwrapper. Signed by Gardner. From the collection of Gardner's literary executor, friend, and fellow author Nicholas Delbanco. Gardner and acclaimed novelist and critic Delbanco first forged a friendship when Delbanco hosted Gardner during a reading tour at Bennington College in 1974. Delbanco ended up hiring Gardner for the English Department at the College. They and their families began a close professional and personal relationship in which each of the authors strove to critique the other's works in private and promote them in public, Gardner touting Delbanco as "one of the country's best novelists." Each acknowledged the contribution of the other in developing both their theories of literature and for specific elements of their respective works, whether it be Delbanco using Gardner's title *Stillness* for one of his novels or Gardner using Delbanco's writing to help clarify the husband-wife relationship in one of his own works. Delbanco's home and family became a refuge for both Gardner and his first wife during their messy divorce. Following Gardner's death in a 1982 motorcycle accident, Delbanco became Gardner's literary executor; editing and contributing an introduction to Gardner's posthumously published *Stillness and Shadows*. Delbanco's daughter Francesca, who was an occasional babysitter of Gardner's children, and who has herself published two well-received novels, *Ask Me Anything* and *Midnight in Manhattan* was the Dedicatee of one of Gardner's acclaimed children's books, *The King of Hummingbirds*.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Gardner, John. The Sunlight Dialogues. Alfred A. Knopf, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A., 1973.
Price: US$399.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Large, heavy sturdy book, fine red cloth with embossed illustration at top front of man peeking beneath curtain, very light scratch on front, gilt lettering with border bright on spine, black inside covers and adjacent end papers, 673 lightly browned pages plus death certificate illustration. DJ beneath mylar, illustration on front of town's stoplight, church and cop on front, spine and back, praise on back for "Grendel" from Richard Locke in New York Times, Peter S. Prescott in Newsweek and others. Tiny light brown spotting to long pages' exterior edge. Signed in blue ink on title page beneath printed name. Very Fine DJ/Near Fine book.
Seller: Callaghan Books South, New Port Richey, FL, U.S.A.