TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - INSCRIBED TO DORIS THOMPSON by Lee, Harper - 1960

Philadelphia & New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1960. First Edition. First Printing, one of ca.5,000 copies. Octavo (20.75cm); brown paper over light green cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in brown on spine; dustjacket; [8],9-296pp. Inscribed by the author five months after publication on the front endpaper: "To Doris, with my affection and gratitude and love and gratitude and gratitude! Nelle / November 17, 1960." Light wear and gentle sunning to spine ends, faint, scattered foxing to endpapers, with three tiny stains to right edge of textblock; Very Good+. In the correct first printing dustjacket, priced $3.95, with 4-line Truman Capote quote on the front flap and Jonathan Daniels quote on the rear flap; shelfworn, gentle sunning along front joint, with a short split (1 3/4") to lower part of same; small tears, attendant creases, and shallow losses to spine ends and upper corners; dampstains to lower flap folds, with one extending from lower front flap into lower front panel (resulting in some streaking and loss of color), and the other, smaller one extending from lower rear flap into the lower left corner of rear panel; some scattered foxing to rear panel; an honest copy, unrestored, but just barely Very Good. Lee's first published book, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, and basis for Robert Mulligan's Oscar-winning 1962 film starring Gregory Peck. A superb association copy, rather effusively inscribed to Doris Thompson (1907-1970), co-owner of the Francis Scott Key Bookshop in Washington, DC. The Francis Scott Key Bookshop, located in Georgetown, was widely-known as a true bibliophiles shop and literary landmark, established in 1939 by Edith Jarvis, a descendant of Francis Scott Key. When the shop came on the market in 1941, it was acquired by Thompson and her friend Martha Johnson (1903-1988), who ran the shop until her death in 1988. The events surrounding the inscription in the present copy were significant: Lee was invited to the Key Bookshop on November 17, 1960, for a 3pm book signing, and Thompson had arranged for her to be interviewed by Winzola McLendon, who wrote a feature on Lee and the success of her novel for the Washington Post. It was Thompson who personally "hand-sold two hundred copies of Mockingbird in less than a week because "of all the novels I have read in my years in the book business, Harper Lee has written the one I would be proudest to have done myself" (Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, p.183). While signed first printings of Mockingbird appear with some frequency in the marketplace, copies signed in the year of publication appear far less so, and tend to be of the generic "Best wishes" variety. This copy, inscribed with uncharacteristic warmth four months after publication, shows a demonstrable link between the book trade and the early success of Lee's debut.