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Roth, Philip : Novotny's Pain

Sylvester & Orphanos, Los Angeles, CA, 1980

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 40 pages. The author's short story. One of Philip Roth's fienst achievements. Limited Edition of 330 lettered, numbered, and signed copies. The first and only edition. Originally appeared in a slightly different version in The New Yorker Magazine on October 27, 1962. Appears in its final version, and in book form, for the first and only time. There is no ISBN. The Limited Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Grant Dahlstrom: Regular-sized volume format. Brown cloth boards with embossed pattern-design and gilt titles embossed on spine, as issued. Text by Philip Roth. Printed on Arches Mould-Made archival stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents, in its Limited Edition format, Philip Roth's "Novotny's Pain". A masterly short story that anticipates "Indignation" (2008), the second in Roth's "Nemeses" cycle of short novels, by forty-six years. Drafted at the beginning of the Korean War, Novotny receives a medical discharge from the Army for his eponymous back pain. This being Roth, his real pain is not just physical but psychological. In a lifetime of prodigious writing, there have been no more than ten Philip Roth Limited Editions in all, making each one of them eminently collectible. Surely, Roth deserved more, and were it not for his fraught relationship with FSG, he would have gotten more. "For the last half-century, the novels of Philip Roth have re-energized American fiction and re-defined its possibilities. Roth's comic genius, his imaginative daring, his courage in exploring uncomfortable truths, and his assaults on political, cultural, and sexual orthodoxies have made him one of the essential writers of our time" (Ross Miller). Philip Roth died on May 22, 2018 of congestive heart failure, literally of heartbreak, at the age of 85. An absolute "must-have" title for Philip Roth collectors. This copy is one of the Limited Edition, indicated/numbered as such on the Back Limitation Page. It is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen by Philip Roth. This title is a late-modern classic. This is one of few copies of the Limited Edition still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. Six of Philip Roth's novels were selected as among the Top 20 works of American fiction of the last 25 years: "American Pastoral", "The Counterlife", "Operation Shylock", "Sabbath's Theater", "The Human Stain", and "The Plot Against America". One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER PHILIP ROTH TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

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