"THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SPANISH LITERATURE SINCE DON QUIXOTE" (NERUDA): ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

GARCIA MARQUEZ, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Harper & Row, (1970). Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket. $4500.

First edition in English of "one of the preeminent literary achievements of the century," in scarce first-issue dust jacket.

"One of the best-known and highly esteemed works of Latin American magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude… allegorizes cosmic questions and literary concerns while remaining an absorbing story" (Barron, Fantasy and Horror 7-130). García Márquez's wife Mercedes "had to pawn her hair dryer and their electric heater to pay for the postage to mail the finished manuscript—in two separate lots, because they couldn't afford to mail the whole thing all at once—to his Argentine publisher, who printed 8000 copies. They sold out in a week… Although the Boom in Latin-American fiction was well under way, the popular response to One Hundred Years of Solitude was almost unimaginable… It is the most famous manifestation of the Boom, and García Márquez is the most celebrated of the prominent Boom writers" (Jon Lee Anderson). Pablo Neruda proclaimed it "the greatest achievement in Spanish literature since Don Quixote" (Klein, 26). First edition, so stated on copyright page and without number row on last leaf; first-issue dust jacket with exclamation point on front flap. Originally published in 1967 in Spanish. Gift inscription.

Cloth with a few stray faint marks; bright dust jacket with toning to spine and along folds, tiny chip and fold to rear panel. A lovely copy.