95 Signed By Isaac Asimov Inscribed By John Gardner 122 GARDNER, John. Grendel. New York, 1971. Octavo, original purple cloth, dust jacket. $4500 First edition of Gardner’s third novel, his “violent, inspiring, awesome, terrifying” reimagining of the legendary tale, inscribed, “To R—, Best wishes, John Gardner.” “Grendel, which daringly retells the Beowulf legend from the viewpoint of the monster whom Beowulf kills, is a complex and brilliantly styled parable of consciousness, the consciousness of death and the compensatory urge to create lasting monuments of the mind” (Vinson, 493). Fine. 123ASIMOV, Isaac. The Martian Way. Garden City, 1955. Octavo, original blue cloth, dust jacket. $4600 First edition of Asimov’s important second story collection, signed on the title page by him. This volume contains four early Asimov novellas together in book form for the first time: Youth, The Deep, Sucker Bait and the famous title story, The Martian Way, an attack on McCarthyism that won praise by science fiction scholar James Gunn as “quintessential Asimov… one of the 22 novellas included in Science Fiction Hall of Fame II” (Isaac Asimov, 82). Fine. Presentation Copy Inscribed By Roald Dahl 124 DAHL, Roald. The Witches. London, 1983. Octavo, original bluegreen cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $13,500 First edition, warmly inscribed to a close friend of Dahl’s son, “To Justin with love, Roald Dahl. Oct. 28th 1983.” “Roald Dahl knows… that children love the macabre, the terrifying, the mythic. In his latest book, The Witches, a 7-yearold orphan boy, cared for by his Norwegian grandmother, discovers the true nature of witches… It is a curious sort of tale but an honest one, which deals with matters of crucial importance to children: smallness, the existence of evil in the world, mourning, separation, death” (Erica Jong, New York Times). Fine. “Another Galaxy, Another Time” 125 (FOSTER, Alan Dean) LUCAS, George. Star Wars. From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. New York, 1977. Octavo, original black cloth, dust jacket. $2000 First hardbound trade edition, signed by ghostwriter Alan Dean Foster. Though credited to screenwriter and director George Lucas, veteran scifi author Alan Dean Foster wrote this novelization based on Lucas’ script, for a flat fee of $5000. Published October, 1977; preceded by the paperback edition published in December, 1976, well in advance of the May 1977 movie premiere. Fine.
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