Books

True first edition; 1980 at title page and copyright pages without additional printings stated. One of only 2,500 first printings. Tan full cloth boards, black stylized spine titles, light shelf wear, moderate discoloration at back board. Pages generally near fine, clean; moderate discoloration to apprx. 1" of lower exterior text block corner. Classic vintage inscription at front endpaper: "Mardi Gras 1982, Dear Claudia and Bob, This is very appropriate to the season. A crazy read! Rich." Bind fine, square; hinges intact. Dust wrapper, moderate edge wear, rub, chip, crease; clipped, protected in new clear sleeve. First edition wrapper without Chicago Sun-Times blurb at back panel. Rare near very good first edition in same matching wrapper. "A masterwork of comedy. pungent slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities. make for a grand comic fugue!" - NYT. Presented here is "a great slob of a man in violent revolt against the entire twentieth century!" This book's unusual path to success began in 1976 when John Kennedy Toole's mother Thelma, using a walker, hobbled into the office of novelist Walker Percy at Loyola University. She was followed by a chauffeur carrying a manuscript that she told Mr. Percy was a ''masterpiece." It was through Thelma Toole's great efforts that her late son's satirical novel was finally posthumously published with assistance from professor and author Walker Percy. This unique satire soon garnered acclaim and then the Pulitzer, twelve years after her son took his life in despair from rejection of this very novel. He did this at 31 years of age in 1969 after facing consistent rejection from nearly every American publisher. Walker Percy reluctantly agreed to read it. He became entranced as he read, and decided that it was ''a major achievement, a huge comic-satiric-tragic one-of-a-kind rendering of life in New Orleans.'' After several more publishers rejected the book, Louisiana State University Press agreed to take a chance with a first printing of only 2,500. The soon to be Pulitzer Prize winner went on to 50,000 copies in hard cover and nearly 600,000 in paperback within three years. Manufactured in the United States of America. 338 pages. Insured post. Size: 8vo - over 7� - 9�" Tall.

A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole, published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, 11 years after Toole's suicide. The book's title refers to an epigram from Jonathan Swift's essay, 'Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting': 'When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.' Set in New Orleans, the novel bursts with rich and vivid characters, especially the protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, whose comedic misadventures are a highlight of the narrative.