GRAVITY'S RAINBOW [First UK edition - wrappers issue]

Thomas Pynchon

ISBN 10: 0224009621 / ISBN 13: 9780224009621

Edité par Jonathan Cape, London, 1973

A propos de cet article

First impression of the true first edition, published in the UK as a paperback original (PBO) with a smaller hardcover issue intended mainly for libraries. ***A very good copy in glossy illustrated card covers priced at £1.95 on the back flap. The covers are unmarked, and largely uncreased, with just minimal edge wear. There is a light crease to the top corner of the front cover, and there are light vertical reading creases to the spine. The orange colour is faded to near-white on the spine, and to a yellow on the back cover near to the spine. There is slight marking and wear the bottom edge of the page block. Internally the book is near fine with no inscriptions. No foxing. No creases. Pages clean and bright. There is no cracking to the binding [which is often found with this huge paperback] and the binding is nice and square. [Please see scans] ***760 pages. 204 mm x 138 mm. ***'If I were banished to the moon tomorrow and could take only five books along, this would have to be one of them.' - New York Times. ***'It is a funny, disturbing, exhausting, and massive novel by a remarkable mind and talent.' - Time [Review quotes taken from the back cover] ***'"Gravity's Rainbow" is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the Schwarzgerät ("black device"), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000." Traversing a wide range of knowledge, Gravity's Rainbow transgresses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction with "A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories" by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as "'unreadable,' 'turgid,' 'overwritten' and in parts 'obscene'". No Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction that year. The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Time named "Gravity's Rainbow" one of its "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels", a list of the best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 and it is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest American novels ever written.' [Wiki] ***First impression of the true first edition, published in the UK as a paperback original. There was also a much scarcer simultaneous hardback edition, aimed mainly at public libraries. Both first editions are very hard to find now, and the paperback issue is especially prone to damage, as it is so bulky. Most copies have damaged covers and sometimes cracked bindings. This copy is one of the better-preserved of the surviving copies. Scarce thus. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc. N° de réf. du vendeur 8144x

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : GRAVITY'S RAINBOW [First UK edition - ...

Éditeur : Jonathan Cape, London

Date d'édition : 1973

Reliure : Soft cover

Illustrateur : Marc Getter [Cover design]

Etat : Very Good

Etat de la jaquette : No Jacket, as Issued

Edition : First Edition

A propos de ce titre

Revue de presse:

"The best seller described as the kind of Ulysses which Joyce might have written if he had been a Boeing engineer with a fetish for quadrille paper" (Irish Examiner)

"Pynchon’s masterpiece." (John Sutherland Guardian)

"This stunner is already classed with Moby Dick and Ulysses. Set in Europe at the end of WWII, with the V2 as the White Whale, the novel's central characters race each other through a treasure hunt of false clues, disguises, distractions, horrific plots and comic counterplots to arrive at the formula which will launch the Super Rocket... Impossible here to convey the vastness of Pynchton's range, the brilliance of his imagery, the virtuosity of his style and his supreme ability to incorporate the cultural miasma of modern life" (Vogue)

"Pynchon leaves the rest of the American lierary establishment at the starting gate...the range over which he moves is extraordinary, not simply in terms of ideas explored but also in the range of emotions he takes you through" (Time Out)

"Entering this enormous novel is like buying a ticket for the ghost train and plunging into a world of metaphysical illusion, where you must forget earlier notions about life and letters and even the Novel" (Financial Times)