J O N K E R S R A R E B O O K S
85. The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie SPARK, Muriel
Macmillan, 1961. First edition. An intimate presentation copy, inscribed by Spark for her editor, “For Rachel Mackenzie with love from Muriel”. Publisher’s green cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, in the pictorial dustwrapper by Victor Reinganum. A fine copy in a very good dustwrapper. [43583] £4,500 An exceptional association copy of Spark’s sixth and best known novel, inscribed to the editor who secured Spark international fame. Rachel Mackenzie was Muriel Spark’s editor at The New Yorker, and had been encouraging her to submit work to the magazine from the late 1950s. In Au- gust 1961, Spark sent her The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and promptly received a telegram back from Mackenzie, “I love this book”. Mackenzie dedicated the entirety of October 14th 1961 issue
to publishing the novel, and Spark was the first British woman to receive this accolade. Its success in The New Yorker transformed her: “Suddenly, from having cult status and modest Amer- ican sales, she had 430,000 readers and the imprimatur of the flossiest arbiter of American literary taste” (Stan- nard). PROVENANCE: Rachel Mackenzie (1909-1980), editor at The New Yorker.
86. The Tin Drum Translated From The German By Ralph Manheim GRASS, Gunter
Secker & Warburg, 1962. First UK edition. Publisher’s grey cloth, lettered and decorated in red and gilt to spine, in the pictorial dustwrapper. Signed by Gunter Grass to the front free endpaper. A very good copy in a very good dustwrapper, toned of spine. [43301] £1,250
Gunter Grass’s extraordinary first novel (Die Blechtrom- mele in German, published 1959) is recognised as a clas- sic of post-World War II literature. Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 for his “frolicsome black fables [which] portray the forgotten face of history.” The Nobel committee went on to comment “His writing constitutes a dialogue with the great traditions of German culture, conducted with punctilious affection.... It is not too auda- cious to assume that “The Tin Drum” will become one of the enduring literary works of the 20th century.”
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