The Right Stuff.

WOLFE, Tom.

Item Number: 1218

New York: Picador, 2008.

First edition of the re-issue of Tom Wolfe’s classic work. Octavo, original illustrated wrappers. Signed by Tom Wolfe with his characteristic signature on the title page and additionally signed by John Glenn on the half-title page, who was a member of the Mercury Seven. In fine condition.

Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero." "One of the most romantic and thrilling books ever written about men who put themselves in peril." (The Boston Globe). Listed by Modern Library as one of the top 100 nonfiction works of the twentieth century.