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Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
- Used
- Fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Fine/Very Good +
- Seller
-
Orange Park, Florida, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961. Book. Fine. Hardcover. First Edition. Stated "Second Printing" of the first edition with title page dated 1961. First-issue dust jacket with $5.95 publisher's price on front flap and the original photo of Heller across entire back panel. Blue cloth hardcover with silver lettering on spine, red topstain and untrimmed page edges. 443 pages. FINE book in VERY GOOD + dust jacket. Book is bright, tight and clean with no sunning or bumping. Flawless interior. No previous owner markings. Dust jacket is bright and clean with no sun-toning. Lightly chipped top spine edge. Three small closed tears: top edge of spine, top edge of front panel and bottom edge of rear panel. Light rubbing on spine panel and some faint spots of discoloration on blue front panel. Thin strip of black adhesive remnant at top edge of rear panel. Otherwise excellent with no creases. Jacket is protected in a mylar cover..
Synopsis
Catch-22 is Joseph Heller’s first novel and his most acclaimed work. Set during World War II, the novel uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, mainly focusing on the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Occasionally, the narrator also shows us how other characters, such as the chaplain or Hungry Joe, experience the world around them. As the novel’s events are described from the different points of view through separate out-of-sequence storylines, the timeline of Catch-22 develops along with the plot. The novel's title refers to a plot device that is repeatedly invoked in the story. Catch-22 starts as a set of paradoxical requirements whereby airmen mentally unfit to fly did not have to, but could not actually be excused. By the end of the novel, the phrase is invoked as the explanation for many unreasonable restrictions. “Catch-22” has since entered the English language and can be understood as an unsolvable logic puzzle, a difficult situation from which there is no escape. Upon publication, the book was not a best seller in the United States. It was merely a cult favorite until the publication of the paperback edition in 1962, which set record sales — most likely benefitting from a national debate about the pointlessness of the Vietnam War. Catch-22 has since been ranked as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library, one of the 20th century's top 100 novels by the Radcliffe Publishing Course, and one of the 100 greatest novels of all time by The Observer.
Read More: Identifying first editions of Catch-22
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Details
- Bookseller
- Odysseus Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 3936
- Title
- Catch-22
- Author
- Joseph Heller
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good +
- Edition
- First Edition
- Publisher
- Simon and Schuster
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1961
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
- Keywords
- collectible
- Bookseller catalogs
- Literature;
Terms of Sale
Odysseus Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- 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...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- 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....
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Rubbing
- Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
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