THE DYING ANIMAL

Boston, MA: Houghton And Mifflin, 2001. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. Boston, MA: Houghton And Mifflin, 2001. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 156 pages. The author's twenty-third novel. One of Philip Roth's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly copies that are signed on a tipped-in page. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Philip Roth's "The Dying Animal". Inaugurates his extended and productive departure from the full-fledged novel to the novella ("short novel" describes Roth's achievement more accurately). The phase culminates in his brilliant "Nemeses" Quartet, which also completes Philip Roth's literary journey. Revisits David Kepesh, now an old man, who first appeared in "The Breast" (1972) and subsequently in "The Professor of Desire" (1977). Describes with a delicate balance of pathos and irony the elegiac encounter between orectic desire and old age: "David Kepesh is an eminent cultural critic and star lecturer at a New York college as well as an articulate propagandist of the Sexual Revolution. For years, he has made a practice of sleeping with adventurous female students while maintaining an aesthete's critical distance. But now that distance has been annihilated. When he becomes involved with Consuela Castillo, the humblingly beautiful daughter of Cuban exiles, Kepesh finds himself dragged helplessly, bitterly, furiously into the quagmire of sexual jealousy and loss. In chronicling this descent, Philip Roth performs a breathtaking set of variations on the themes of eros and mortality" (Publisher's blurb). The basis of the very fine film adaptation, "Elegy", by Isabel Coixet, with career-defining performances by Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz. 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 very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Philip Roth. It is signed directly on the title page itself, not on a tipped-in page, as copies available online are (even though they are not indicated as such). This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are in multiple subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. 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). ISBN 0618135871.