GIRL WITH CURIOUS HAIR [TOGETHER WITH] INFINITE JEST: A NOVEL - INSCRIBED TO BRIAN SIMPSON, WITH A TLS LAID IN
$18,500 · Offered by Biblio
First edition
New York: W.W. Norton & Company / Little, Brown and Company, 1996. First Editions. A compelling trio of items, comprised of Wallace's first collection of short fiction and his second novel, inscribed to Brian Simpson, long-time owner of Babbitts Books in Normal, Illinois. Wallace was a regular patron there while teaching at Illinois State University. He would often do readings and signings there, which brought in no shortage of new customers, and in an article for Condé Nast Traveler, he named it his favorite bookshop. His letter to Simpson is insightful, in which he outlines his required reading order for the Fall, 1994 semester. He asked Simpson to order the following titles for his two sections of "English 102 -- Literary Analysis 1: Prose Fiction": Black Sunday (Thomas Harris), The Big Nowhere (James Ellroy), Rock Star (Jackie Collins), Where Are the Children? (Mary Higgins Clark), Carrie (Stephen King), Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry), The Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris), and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis). He concludes with a request for Simpson to include a small Xerox packet to sell to students coming in for their books ("The English Dept. uses only mimeo, and it looks like shit. If you don't care for the hassle I can arrange something else"). A copy of Wallace's syllabus for this course, held by the Ransom Center, reveals the following aims of the course: "...In less narcotizing words, English 102 aims to show you some ways to read fiction mor
- Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company / Little, Brown and Company
- Year: 1996
- Edition: First Edition
- Printing: first
- Binding: unknown
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