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Muse [SIGNED COPY, FIRST PRINTING]

Muse [SIGNED COPY, FIRST PRINTING]

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Muse [SIGNED COPY, FIRST PRINTING]

by Galassi, Jonathan

  • Used
  • near fine
  • Hardcover
  • Signed
  • first
Condition
Near Fine/Fine
ISBN 10
0385353340
ISBN 13
9780385353342
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
San Francisco, California, United States
Item Price
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About This Item

New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2015. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. Near Fine/Fine. Near fine in fine dust jacket. SIGNED by author on title page (signature only). 1st edition, 1st printing, complete number line. Dust jacket is fine. Book has minor softening to the base of the spine and faint shelfwear to the bottoms of the boards. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 272 p. Audience: General/trade. Galassi is the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux and the author of 'Left-Handed: Poems' and 'North Street: Poem'. This is is first novel. Rare signed. Where possible, all books come with dust jacket in a clear protective plastic sleeve, sealed in a ziplock bag, wrapped in bubble wrap, shipped in a box.

Reviews

On May 27 2015, CloggieDownunder said:
“It was not where or who you came from but what you did with your own grab bag of advantages and disadvantages that made you remarkable. He’d learned early on in his work that the real writers hadn’t gone to Yale or Oxford; they came from everywhere - or nowhere – and their determination to dig down, to matter, whatever the odds against them, was the only key to their succeeding”

Muse is the first novel by American poet, translator and publisher of iconic Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jonathan Galassi. The only literature-appreciating member of his decidedly non-literary family, a teen-aged Paul Dukach takes refuge in Pages, the local bookstore. When proprietress, Morgan Dickerman introduces him to the poetry of Ida Perkins, it is the beginning of a life-long passion. He devours her work and becomes a fanatical expert on all there is to know about this elusive woman who was”… literally enamored with art – arguably less so with the individuals who created it, who often turned out to have inconvenient needs and egos of their own, which on occasion dwarfed even hers”

On graduation from college, Paul eventually finds employment with independent publisher, Purcell and Stern, learning a great deal from his boss, the brash but knowledgeable Homer Stern: “Sexual activity for Homer was an index of moral fallibility and vitality at one and the same time. It didn’t matter what people did; he was sure they did something illicit. It meant they were alive, like him. Maybe he was simply looking for companionship in transgression”. Paul also gets to know Stern’s arch-rival, Sterling Wainwright, Ida’s second cousin and publisher of all her works.

On the way home from a European book fair (“Frankfurt [Book Fair] was anything but social; it was carnivorousness at its most rapacious, with a genteel European veneer. The dressy clothes, the parties, the cigars, the jacked-up prices in the hotels and restaurants, the disappointing food were all of a piece. It was exhausting and repetitive and depressing – and no one in publishing with any sense or style would have missed it for the world”), Paul finally gets the opportunity to meet his idol, now reclusive for many years in Venice.

He finds that Venice “… wasn’t dead at all. Venice was a Platonic beehive buzzing with covert vitality. Its fabulous gilt-encrusted past wasn’t the point; it was how the past kept gnawing away at the present, digesting and fermenting and reforming it, and extruding it into the future”. And for some reason, Ida takes him into her confidence, entrusting him with an explosive secret. “Ida had surely been no saint…Ida had been guileless and wilful, passionate and snobbish, generous, great-hearted, self-seeking, myopic, petty” This he knew, but now he faces a dilemma.

Galassi’s extensive experience in both the publishing industry and as a poet are apparent on every page. He peoples his novel with a cast of highly believable authors, editors and publishers that, no doubt, bear more than a passing resemblance to figures in the actual literary industry. Of his publishers, he says: “Their authors and their work had been the ultimate raison d’etre for whatever they themselves had done. Beyond their petty self-aggrandizing, Homer and Sterling and their kind had been true to their writers’ gifts. …Their authors were their gods…”. He completes the effect with a bibliography of Ida’s works and books about her. This is a quite debut novel, one that will have a broad appeal, but in particular to those involved in the industry. Outstanding.

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Details

Bookseller
MostlySignedBooks US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
3842
Title
Muse [SIGNED COPY, FIRST PRINTING]
Author
Galassi, Jonathan
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used - Near Fine
Jacket Condition
Fine
Quantity Available
1
Edition
1st Edition 1st Printing
ISBN 10
0385353340
ISBN 13
9780385353342
Publisher
Knopf Publishing Group
Place of Publication
New York
Date Published
2015
Pages
272

Terms of Sale

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About the Seller

MostlySignedBooks

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2011
San Francisco, California

About MostlySignedBooks

I am a long-time book collector who goes to book signings, book sales, and book stores. I keep my books in a smoke-free environment and treat them with respect. I only sell books because I run out of storage space. If you ever have any questions or concerns about anything please feel free to e-mail me. I guarantee all purchases and want all buyers to feel confident in ordering online. Where possible, books are shipped in protective mylar sleeves, in bubble wrap, in cardboard boxes.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Title Page
A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Number Line
A series of numbers appearing on the copyright page of a book, where the lowest number generally indicates the printing of that...
Shelfwear
Minor wear resulting from a book being place on, and taken from a bookshelf, especially along the bottom edge.
Fine
A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...

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