The Wapshot Chronicle and the Wapshot Scandal.

CHEEVER, John.

$475.00

Item Number: 143273

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1979.

First edition of the collected reissue of Cheever’s National Book Award and William Dean Howells Medal-winning Wapshot novels. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, lengthily inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Mark Zimmer with the Hope of enjoying him as a Friend as I enjoy his brother John Cheever.” The recipient was likely a sibling of Max Zimmer, Cheever’s former student, protégé and lover who moved into the Cheever family household and became Cheever’s caregiver later in life. Near fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket.

In 1957, when The Wapshot Chronicle was first published, John Cheever was already recognized as a writer of superb short stories. But the Chronicle, which won the 1958 National Book Award, established him as a major novelist. Seven years later, The Wapshot Scandal emphatically confirmed this standing. Together, these novels present the complete story of the Wapshot inheritance, from the early twentieth century to the 1960s and from a small Massachusetts village to New York and Europe.