Jaws.

BENCHLEY, Peter.

$4,200.00

Item Number: 148167

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, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition. Boldly signed by Peter Benchley on a page bound in. An exceptional presentation.

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).