CABLE, George W.

The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life [INSCRIBED]

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1880. First Edition. First printing. 12mo (19.5cm). Brown cloth, stamped in gilt on front and spine; green and white patterned endpapers; [x],448,[8]pp; 8pp publisher's advertisements at rear. Inscribed: "My dear Mr. Donaldson: It is a pleasure to an author to put his name in any of his books, but how much beyond the ordinary, when in a first edition found in the hands of a collector! Yours truly G. W. Cable. Philadelphia, Mar. 1902." Occasional pencil annotations. Bright, though mildly rubbed; front hinge cracked but holding, generally sound: around Very Good.

Inscribed first of Cable's second and most important novel, a romance portraying Creole society in early nineteenth-century New Orleans. ANB describes it as a "violent and technically sophisticated" examination of "the personal and societal costs of the sexual and economic exploitation engendered by slavery," and "an important precursor of the modern novel." Cable, once lauded as one of the most important authors in the country, has been cited as an influence on Willa Cather, William Faulkner, and Robert Penn Warren. With manuscript note duplicating some of the text of the inscription laid down on f.f.e.p., on a slip from the Mask and Wig Club at the University of Pennsylvania. BAL 2331. COAN p.201. WRIGHT III 868.

Price: $500.00

Go Back