Marry Me: A Romance.

UPDIKE, John. Illustrated by Barbara Fox [Erica Jong].

$300.00

Item Number: 142811

Franklin Center, Pennsylvania: The Franklin Library, 1976.

First edition of “the gentlest book Updike has written” (Kirkus Reviews), privately printed exclusively for Members of the First Edition Society. Octavo, original publisher’s full leather elaborately stamped in gilt, moire silk endpapers, all edges gilt, silk ribbon bound in. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the limitation page, “For Erica + Ken warm regards, John.” The recipients, American writer Erica Jong and lawyer Kenneth David Burrows were married in August of 1989. 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. In fine condition.

"This understatement, this unwavering vision fixed on only four characters, is a part of what makes the story so effective. Updike's best fiction has always been his most narrowly focused; in this novel the plot is direct—complex without becoming complicated by symbols thrashing obtrusively just behind the canvas—and refreshingly free from the portentousness that has marred several of his most ambitious novels. 'Marry Me' is the best written and least self-conscious of Updike's longer fiction; it contains his most sophisticated and sympathetic portraits of women. It is quite simply, Updike's best novel yet. I can't believe that anyone married or divorced could read it without being moved" (Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek),