Jaws.

BENCHLEY, Peter.

$7,800.00

Item Number: 148200

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1974.

First edition of Benchley’s bestselling thriller and basis for the blockbuster 1975 motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. Octavo, original cloth, blue endpapers. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “to: Frank … – keep writing! – best wishes – Peter Benchley.” Benchley has added an original drawing of a shark beneath his signature. From the library of noted collector William Strutz with his small bookplate to the pastedown. Near fine in a near fine first-issue dust jacket with the $6.95 price. Author photograph by Alex Gotfryd. An exceptional example, rare and desirable signed with an original drawing.

A "confrontation between man and nature [that] consciously echoes Moby Dick" (Fantasy and Horror 6-27), Benchley's first novel spent 44 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 1974. He also wrote the screenplay for the blockbuster 1975 film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg. In a later interview, Benchley said, "I knew that Jaws couldn't possibly be successful. It was a first novel, and nobody reads first novels. It was a first novel about a fish, so who cares? And I knew they couldn't make a movie because nobody could catch and train a great white shark and the technology of the time wasn't up to creating a credible animal. So much for what I knew" (Time).