The Hunters.

SALTER, James.

$2,000.00

Item Number: 117479

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956.

First edition of the author’s first novel and landmark in the literature of war. Octavo, original cloth. Signed by James Salter on the title page. Fine in a very good dust jacket with some wear to the extremities. Jacket design by Bill English. Signed first editions are rare.

Salter's 1956 fighter pilot novel stands out as a literary endeavor in a genre dominated by cheap adventure yarns. Salter goes beyond the usual gung-ho fighter jock glitz to present the story of Capt. Cleve Connell, whose intentions of becoming an ace are thwarted by enemy pilots with plans of their own. "Anyone under forty may not appreciate how profoundly Salter influenced my generation. [He] created the finest work ever to appear in print--ever--about men who fly and fight" (Robert F. Dorr). It is the basis for the 1958 film bearing the same name produced and directed by Dick Powell, it stars Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner