“the best war novel to emerge from the United States” – Anthony Burgess
MAILER, NORMAN. The Naked and the Dead
New York and Toronto: Rinehart, 1948
Original black cloth, black dust jacket. Owner’s inscription dated 1948 on front endpaper. Rear endpaper browned. Fine, in a superbly preserved dust jacket.
First edition of Norman Mailer’s landmark first novel. This is the first printing, with the Rinehart colophon on copyright page, and in the first issue dust jacket without reviews on rear flap.
The Naked and the Dead has been called “the best war novel to emerge from the United States” (Anthony Burgess). Norman Mailer, who “loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation … burst on the scene in 1948 with The Naked and the Dead” (New York Times). The book remained on the Times best seller list for more than a year.
Mailer’s electrifying debut conveys, “with great accuracy and power, the agony of the American troops in the Pacific campaign. … It remains Mailer’s best” (Burgess).
This is a splendid copy in the famously fragile dust jacket.
Modern Library 100 Best Novels 51. Burgess, Anthony. Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939—A Personal Choice.
$3,500