Jaws

Garden City NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.. Fine in Near Fine dj. 1974. Early printing. Hardcover. [a very nice copy, no discernible wear to the book at all; the jacket shows just a little wear at the spine ends, with an itsy-bitsy tear at the crown, but most importantly the spine shows none of the fading that's so typical with this book, with the title still bright red]. BUM-bump-BUM-bump-BUM-bump-BUM-bump....chomp! The novel that spawned the movie that ruined the beach-going experience for thousands of people. This is about as nice a copy as you could hope to find -- eminently gift-worthy, if that's what you 've got in mind. Although not a first printing (it lacks the "First Edition" statement on the copyright page and has no gutter code on page 311), in all other respects it's identical to the first (and the unclipped jacket is exactly the same as the first, including the $6.95 printed price on the front flap). This is also the first copy we've handled (of a half-dozen) on which the lettering of the title on the spine of the jacket is still bright red -- on most copies it's faded to orange. (Here's a curiosity, too: although both the title page and the copyright page date the book as 1974, in the two-title list of Benchley's books facing the title page its date is given as 1973.) .