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107 LE GUIN, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Walker and Company, 1969 “LE GUIN, MORE THAN TOLKIEN, HAS RAISED FANTASY INTO HIGH LITERATURE, FOR OUR TIME” – HAROLD BLOOM First hardback edition. This science fiction classic was Le Guin’s first major success, and a pioneering text in the field of feminist science fiction. It was preceded by the Ace paperback edition earlier the same year, but the hardback edition is preferred, and seldom seen with such a snow-bright jacket. Part of the Hainish cycle, it follows the adventures of a solitary interstellar envoy on the icy planet “Winter” among its ambisexual inhabitants, culminating in the realisation of a profound supra- sexual love, discovered through a shared ordeal on the polar ice. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, and was ranked by Locus magazine in 1987 as the second most important science fiction novel after Frank Herbert’s Dune . Octavo. Original grey boards, spine lettered in black, top edge blue, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Negligible bumps to spine ends, a fine copy in the bright jacket, not price-clipped. £3,750 [155065]
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108 LEE, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia & New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1960 PRE-PUBLICATION ISSUE OF THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING NOVEL Rare advance reading copy, reader’s issue. There were two prepublication issues: one set in Courier typeface, announced the publication date on the front cover as “in July”, with the cover text directed at booksellers; the second issue, of which this is one, had a sheet overlaying the front cover in a more polished typesetting and specified the publication date as 11 July, and the text on the front cover was aimed at readers.
The front wrapper advertises to the recipient: “We hope you will share our pleasure and sense of discover in this fine first novel about, and from, the South. To be published July 11, 1960. Truman Capote has written: ‘Someone rare has written this very fine first novel, a writer with the liveliest sense of life, and the warmest, most authentic humor. A touching book, and so funny, so likeable.’ To Kill a Mockingbird is the choice of the Literary Guild for August, and will appear in the Summer Issue of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.” Octavo. Original printed wrappers, front cover printed in black. Housed in a dark blue quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Spine cocked, wrappers toned, small spot to front cover, contents clean and bright. A very
good copy. £10,000
[155158]
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SUMMER 2022
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