Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism.

UPDIKE, John [Erica Jong].

$400.00

Item Number: 142377

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

First edition of Updike’s sixth collection of essays and literary criticism. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. Association copy, warmly inscribed by the author on the title page, “For Erica Jong who is in the index with my warm regards, John.” The recipient, Erica Jong remains best known for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. Written in the first person and narrated by its protagonist, 29-year-old American poet Isadora Wing, Fear of Flying was written in the throes of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s and encapsulated the movement’s redefinition of female sexuality. In interviews, Jong stated: “At the time I wrote Fear of Flying, there was not a book that said women are romantic, women are intellectual, women are sexual—and brought all those things together… What [Isadora is] looking for is how to be a whole human being, a body and a mind, and that is what women were newly aware they needed in 1973.” The novel remains a feminist classic and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson.

John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading "General Considerations," books, poker, cars, and the American libido.