The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940. Very Good / Very Good. Item #10827
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940. First Edition, First Printing, with 1940 to title and copyright pages. Octavo. 356 pp. First-issue dust jacket with original $2.50 price present and "Summer’s Lease" blurb to rear flap. Tan buckram with dark red lettering.
Large triangular chip along inner edge of front flap with some loss to text of first paragraph; a few chips and shallow tears along edges and spine ends with cracking and creasing at and along spine; black adhesive staining and remnants along top and bottom edges on both recto and verso, with 123 lightly in pencil on verso over spine. Cloth darkened, with tape shadows at top and bottom edges of both boards and light mirroring of the jacket’s black adhesive. Spine cocked. Topstain faded. Back hinge cracked ahead of final gathering with front hinge just starting at full title. Tape residue and abrasions to front and back endpapers from plate and or possibly pocket removal, with a partial illegible red stamp to back pastedown. Opens easily between gatherings but binding is holding. Pages a bit toned with a few stray smudges, but unmarked. Prior owner’s bookplate on front free endpaper dated 1941, but no institutional markings though the tape remnants and endpaper abrasions track with institutional treatment. Still an overall externally presentable first edition of McCullers' debut novel and classic of Southern literature.
[Shapiro A1.1.a].
Price: $750.00