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Updike, John.
AMERICANA AND OTHER POEMS.
New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. Hardcover. First Edition/First Printing. 95 pages. As New/As New. The author's first collection of poetry since "Collected Poems, 1953-1993". Published in a relatively small and limited print run as a ahrdcover original. The true first. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent printings. Brings together fifty-eight poems, three of them of considerable length. The four sections are divided by subject: America, its cities, and airplanes; the poet's life, his childhood, birthdays, and ailments; foreign travel, to Europe and the tropics; and, beginning with the long "Song of Myself" (which is of course, an allusion to Walt Whitman), daily life and its consolations. There is little of the light verse with which John Updike began his writing career nearly fifty years ago, but a light touch can be felt in his nimble manipulation of the ghosts of metric order, in his caressing of the living textures of things, and in his reluctance to wave goodbye to it all. Written in Updike's characteristic lapidary style: Chiseled, polished, impeccable. There is such a thing as a John Updike line or sentence in the sense that there isn't in any other living American writer. Susan Sontag regarded him as the finest stylist in the English language of our time. John Updike's sheer inventiveness is limited only by the limits of his genius, that is to say, it is limitless. This copy is prominently and beautifully signed in black fountain pen on the title page by John Updike. This title has been out-of-print as a hardcover for a long time. This is one of surprisingly few signed copies of the true First Edition still available online and has no flaws, a pristine beauty. Signed copies of John Updike's Hardcover First Editions are more scarce than the Limited Editions because he seldom does public signings and limits the number of books when he does. A very scarce signed copy thus. A writer all his adult life, John Updike is probably the most prolific and most-honored living American writer: Winner of numerous awards, among them the Guggenheim Fellowship (1959), Rosenthal Award, National Institute of Arts and Letters (1959), National Book Award for Fiction (1964), O. Henry Prize (1967-68), American Book Award (1982), National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (1982, 1990), Union League Club Abraham Lincoln Award (1982), National Arts Club Medal of Honor (1984), and the National Medal of the Arts (1989), the highest award the U. S. Government bestows on its artists and writers. In 1976, he became a member of American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2003, Updike received the National Medal for Humanities, joining a very small group of great living Americans who have been honored with both the National Medal of the Arts and the National Medal for the Humanities. Updike's greatest novels, "Rabbit is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest", won Pulitzer Prizes. One of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. A flawless copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOHN UPDIKE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0375412549. $60.00 |
