SORT OF RICH: ADVANCE REVIEW COPY

New York City, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1989. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1989. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 278 pages. The author's fourth novel. One of James Wilcox's very best books. Review Copy. Review Materials laid-in. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents James Wilcox's "Sort of Rich". His second masterpiece. Mines Tula Springs, his inexhaustible subject, once again. So here, for the fourth time, is the fictional, unforgettably, lovably weird community of Tula Springs, Louisiana, described by the author with profound depths of vulnerable feeling, not just empathy. "His wonderful, insightful, hilarious story of a classic marriage-mismatch reveals Wilcox at his best. Fortyish, unmarried Gretchen, Old New York money, runs into widower Frank Dambar (pronounced 'Denner') in a souvenir shop in New Orleans. Instant chemistry turns quickly into marriage" (Library Journal). Mismatch it is, and it ends rather sadly. But true love it also is, as described by James Wilcox in moving yet erotically charged prose. It is a crying shame that James Wilcox's entire body of work has not received the kind of universal recognition that it so richly deserves, otherwise accorded too many inferior, undeserving writers, products of American media hype. The reason is that he writes social comedy - there is no other kind in literature - which is looked down upon as the lesser art, not to be taken seriously, except, of course, by readers and critics who do take literature seriously. An absolute "must-have" title for James Wilcox collectors. This is a Review Copy. It is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by James Wilcox. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The lovely Review Materials are laid-in and include a 4 X 5 inch original silver-gelatin print portrait of James Wilcox looking especially handsome, just like one of his protagonist/anti-heroes. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed Review Copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are in subsequent editions, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. "Modern Baptists" is regarded by Harold Bloom as one of the canonical works of the 20th century. One of the finest writers of the 20th century and our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JAMES WILCOX TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0060160993.