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Midnight Cowboy
by Herlihy, James Leo
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Light staining and sunning to board edges, slight offsetting to endleaves, jacket a bit sunned and chipped. Very good. KWH-376
- Seller
-
Addison, Texas, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Light staining and sunning to board edges, slight offsetting to endleaves, jacket a bit sunned and chipped. Very good. KWH-376. James Leo Herlihy. Midnight Cowboy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965. First edition.
Octavo. 253pp. Publisher's blue cloth, stamped in gilt to spine, original unclipped dust jacket listing a retail price of $4.95.
Octavo. 253pp. Publisher's blue cloth, stamped in gilt to spine, original unclipped dust jacket listing a retail price of $4.95.
Synopsis
In some ways, it was unfortunate for author James Leo Herlihy that his novel Midnight Cowboy was adapted into the landmark film of the same name starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. Although the film, which won several Oscars including Best Picture, certainly brought the rising author a new level of regard and notice, its almost legendary status in the history of American filmmaking has somewhat overshadowed its literary progenitor. This is especially unfortunate since Herlihy's work is considered by many to be one of the best American novels published since World War II. The novel's protagonist is Joe Buck, a naive young Texan who decides to leave his dead-end job and find a grander, more glamorous life in New York City. The city, of course, turns out to be a much harder place to conquer than Joe expected, and he soon finds his dream compromised. Buck's fall from innocence and his relationship with the crippled street hustler Ratso Rizzo form the novel's emotional nucleus, and the unlikely pair is one of the most sensitively-drawn and complex portraits of friendship in recent literature.The focus on male friendship is in fact a longstanding motif in American literature: Twain's Huck and Jim, Melville's Ishmael and Queequeg, Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby, and Kerouac's Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity are some of the notable examples. Herlihy's Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo continue this venerable tradition in their unique, starkly-drawn fashion. Midnight Cowboy also takes a well-deserved place among a group of distinguished American novels that write-often with unnerving candor-about people living on the "margins" of society: Nathaniel West's Miss Lonleyhearts, John Fante's Ask the Dust, Kerouac's On the Road, and William Burroughs' Junky, to name a few. Midnight Cowboy, written by Herlihy with a unique mixture of severe realism and sensitivity, may well prove to be the best and most durable of these accomplished works of fiction.
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Details
- Bookseller
- InkQ Rare Books LLC
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 376
- Title
- Midnight Cowboy
- Author
- Herlihy, James Leo
- Book Condition
- Used - Light staining and sunning to board edges, slight offsetting to endleaves, jacket a bit sunned and chipped. Very good. KWH-376
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Keywords
- Fiction, Novels, Cinema
Terms of Sale
InkQ Rare Books LLC
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
InkQ Rare Books LLC
Biblio member since 2024
Addison, Texas
About InkQ Rare Books LLC
Welcome to InkQ Rare Books! Home to the collections of Larry McMurtry; Screenwriter and Author William Goldman; The Ronald K. Siegel Collection of Books on Psychoactive Drugs, as well as books on hunting and fishing, modern first editions, children's and illustrated books, travels & voyages, history, Texana, ephemera, and more.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- 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....
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- 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...
- Sunned
- Damage done to a book cover or dust jacket caused by exposure to direct sunlight. Very strong fluorescent light can cause slight...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- 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...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
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