Candy

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964. First American Edition . Cloth. Very Good/Near Fine. Octavo. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964. Signed by Terry Southern on the title page, without inscription. First Edition with all first state points, those being - on Jacket: James Jones blurb instead of Nelson Algren's at bottom of back panel; $ 5.00 price; code 0464, bottom of front flap. Book: purple cloth, black paper boards; no statement of printing (later editions do state printing); 5.75" x 8.25", 224 pp.; red endpapers and topstain. A Very Good book in a Near Fine jacket. Book shows some discoloration to top page edges, and a 5% lean (see scan); also very faint touch of fade at top edges of the boards. Jacket is first state and not clipped, still bearing the $ 5.00 price, and really shows no damage to call out, a solid Near Fine example of a jacket which has often suffered grade-loss easily. A nice "flat" signed (no inscription), First Edition, First State example of the somewhat tardy American re-do of Southern's original (under the pseudonym Maxwell Kenton)through the Olympia Press in Paris in 1958 -which was itself chased and marked for destruction by French authorities. Almost startlingly timeless because of its theme and Southern's execution of it, Candy was not only made into a movie (dir. Christian Marquand, 1968, Ewa Aulin as Candy, with John Astin and many others; screenplay by Buck Henry), but was the seminal source of a rogue's gallery of pirate editions and spin-offs of the same title and others. The story of a naive and gorgeous young blonde girl - who quickly finds out in exactly what way we men are all, instantly and always, the same - borrows its plot from Voltaire's Candide and uses that strangely juxtaposed vehicle to shine a light on all the vagaries of modern western life which beg to be lampooned. Considered by many to be a classic of "black( dark) humor". L67