Catch – 22.

HELLER, Joseph.

Item Number: 89046

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961.

First edition of Heller’s classic first book. Octavo, original blue cloth. Presentation coy, lengthily inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in the year of publication, “To Sue Fox – With all best wishes and with the hope that we’ll meet again soon. Hungry Joe Heller November 14, 1961 New York.” The inscription references one of Heller’s characters, Hungry Joe, a soldier tormented by nightmares who has yet been permitted to return home despite the fact that he has finished the book’s protagonist, WWII Army Air Corps Captain John Yossarian’s, required number of squadron missions. Very good in a very good dust jacket with some wear to the foot and crown of the spine. Jacket design by Paul Bacon. Rare and desirable with such a lengthy inscription by Heller.

"Catch-22, Joseph Heller's first and best-known novel, depicts a military world turned upside down. In Heller's World War II, a supplies manager has more power than a general, and anyone seeking a discharge on the grounds of insanity is declared sane enough to keep on fighting. When the novel appeared in 1961, World War II veterans appreciated its satire of the military bureaucracy and chaos of war. By the mid-1960's, it had become a cult classic among counterculture activists for its biting indictments of war. Many consider the novel to be the definitive statement of the modern antiwar position. The phrase 'Catch-22', symbolizing the absurdity of all institutional logic, has become a permanent part of our language" (NYPL Books of the Century 177). Basis for the 1970 film directed by Mike Nichols. The cast included Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Olimpia Carlisi, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, and Orson Welles.