The Hunt for Red October TOGETHER WITH Typed Letter Signed to John Ball on Letterhead of Clancy's insurance company TOGETHER WITH A BOOKPLATE SIGNED BY CLANCY by Clancy, Tom; [Ball, John] - 1984 [Book]; 1985 [Clancy Letter: [O.F. BOWEN AGENCY, INC.]

Annapolis, MD [Book]; Encino, California [Clancy Letter]: Naval Institute Press, 1984 [Book]; 1985 [Clancy Letter]. First Edition. Hardcover book with unbound highly-relevant items. Very Good + to Near Fine/Very Good + to Near Fine. A Very Good + to Near Fine copy of the first edition, first printing, first issue of Tom Clancy's highly notable DEBUT BOOK, in a Very Good + to Near Fine first issue dust jacket, TOGETHER WITH a bookplate signed by Tom Clancy loosely laid in and ALSO TOGETHER WITH A TYPED LETTER SIGNED FROM TOM CLANCY TO then newly fellow AUTHOR JOHN BALL [John Dudley Ball, Jr.] (author of "In the Heat of the Night" and many other works) -- and showing some pencil notes presumably made by John Ball. [The pencil notes show interesting telephone numbers. The number in the left margin is, as there stated, the number of Marilyn Ducksworth, the highest-ranking black woman in publishing, who began her career as a Publishing Assistant at Doubleday where she earned a reputation for hard work and absolute credibility and where she rose to become Director of Publicity. She later moved to Putnam Publishing Group (which published subsequent Tom Clancy novels), one of America’s oldest and most highly-respected literary institutions, where she rose to a coveted Vice-Presidency. The number at the top of the page is for the Hotel Plaza Athenee in Manhattan, NY, and the other number listed and marked "home" presumably belonged to Clancy.] The book's jacket shows some light toning as well as a tiny indentation to the front panel. The volume shows a push to the spine tail as well as tiny rubs to each board's leading corners and to the board bottoms. The book was published on October 1, 1984, and, as it was the first Novel ever published by the Naval Institute Press, it was not only Clancy's debut book but was the Publisher's debut novel as well. In the Letter, Clancy (dated July 29, 1985) quite politely addresses the recipient as "Mr. Ball" as the two had never met, and then thanks Ball for his letter to Clancy's Publisher as well as Ball's review of this book, noting that both had been forwarded to Clancy by the Naval Institute Press. After complementing Ball for his works, Clancy mentions that his Publisher has made a movie deal for the book under a contract restraining the movie Producer so that he (the film's Producer) ..."can't tamper too much with the book." Clancy further mentions that the Navy will cooperate in the production of the film (saving millions of dollars in costs) "And Navy cooperation means playing ball. You see, after writing the book, the Navy has rather adopted me (the Royal Navy too, too, for that matter) ; so I will be a real, but unofficial factor in this ." Clancy then discusses "Marko's letter" and its effect on the book's length, how "sub-drivers....truly love playing games with other peoples' heads. And they really do play all kinds ["kinds" underscored] of nasty tricks on people." Clancy then mentions a writer "who wanted two naked women in a sub-skipper's cabin" and mentions the role of "sub skippers". The cooperation of the Navy certainly enhanced the movie. The sub interiors were filmed on the U.S.S. Blueback, the last operating diesel submarine in the U.S. Navy. Notably, Clancy had sold the publication rights for the book to the Naval Institute Press for a mere $5,000 but was later blessed to repurchase them for his newly-formed JREL from the Press for $125,000. [JREL was an entity created by Clancy and his wife.] Then-President Ronald Reagan's vocal support of the book, which he described as "a perfect yarn", further boosted sales. The repurchase of the rights to the book allowed Clancy to sell the Movie Rights. The Movie was released on Friday, March 2, 1990, starred Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, and Sam Neill, and grossed approximately $17 million on its opening weekend, such amount being more than half the film's ($30 Million) budget. The film went on to gross hundreds of millions in US Dollars worldwide. Seventeen of Clancy's novels have been bestsellers and more than 100 million copies of his books have been sold. When Clancy died in 2013 he left behind an estate worth approximately $83 million. Thus we have here not only a nice copy of a book (which, due to its great popularity, generally shows meaningful wear to both the volume and its dust jacket) but also a wonderful letter sent by Clancy to a fellow (and also highly-successful) novelist (one who became a friend), certainly one of the most-notable nonbusiness letters from Tom Clancy, sent by Clancy in the dawn of his remarkable career, having been so early that, at the time, Clancy was still primarily employed in the business of selling insurance and thus used his insurance company letterhead to prepare his letter. [He wrote the book in his spare time after work and on weekends, with his time spent at the insurance office declining over time -- to his wife's consternation.] It is, quite frankly, an AMAZING AND RARE FIND. An EXCEPTIONAL GATHERING OF TOM CLANCY ITEMS. RARE INDEED