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“SECURES HIS PLACE AT THE VERY FRONT OF AMERICAN WRITERS OF FICTION”: FIRST EDITION OF LIGHT IN AUGUST, INSCRIBED BY FAULKNER

FAULKNER, William. Light in August. (New York): Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, (1932). Octavo, original beige cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition, first issue of one of Faulkner’s most powerful and ambitious novels, inscribed on the title page, “William Faulkner, Los Angeles, Cal. 23 April, 1936.”

Published a year after his controversial Sanctuary, Faulkner’s tale of Joe Christmas and Lena Grove received almost universal acclaim. The New York Times called it “an astonishing performance? Light in August is a powerful novel, a book which secures Mr. Faulkner’s place at the very front of American writers of fiction” (Books of the Century, 100-01). “A searing novel? For the first time in his writing, Faulkner directly confronts racial prejudice in the South? Light in August is perhaps best read as Faulkner’s ironic Gospel” (Parini, 178-83). First issue, with first printing statement on copyright page, and “Jefferson” for “Mottstown” on page 340, line 1; first-issue binding, lettered in blue and orange. Without original glassine. Bruccoli & Clark, 122. See Petersen A13.Ia; Brodsky 134. In April of 1936, Faulkner was in Los Angeles working “on loan” from Twentieth Century-Fox to RKO Studios on the script of Gunga Din and spending time with fellow writer Nathaniel West.

Book with one tiny nick to lower edge of front board, otherwise fine. Bright dust jacket in extraordinary condition, with just a bit of mild wear to spine head. A beautiful copy, rare and most desirable inscribed.