TRUE GRIT

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968. First edition. Very good in a very good jacket.. Signed first printing of Portis's eternally underrated masterwork — inscribed just months after publication. In his second novel, Portis produced the most singular, grim and resolute voice of any narrator in literature, excepting perhaps Jane Eyre. Donna Tartt, eulogizing Portis poignantly and well wrote that he "caught better than any writer then alive the complex and highly inflected regional vernacular I heard spoken as a child — mannered and quaint, old-fashioned and highly constructed but also blunt, roughshod, lawless, inflected by Shakespeare and Tennyson and King James but also by agricultural gazetteers and frilly old Christian pamphlets, by archaic dictionaries of phrase and fable, by the voices of mule drivers and lady newspaper poets and hanging judges and hellfire preachers." Rare signed, especially so shortly after publication and with such an intriguing (car purchase?), lengthy inscription; Portis was a reluctant signer. An exceptional example of book that is every bit as good as people say. 7.75'' x 5.5''. Original blue-gray cloth. In original unclipped ($4.95) dust jacket designed by Paul Davis. Ochre endpapers. 215 pages. Inscribed on the front free endpaper by Portis: "For Gerald Cathey / who I hope has / given me a clean / title, wtih every / good wish / Jan 7, 1969 / Charles Portis." Book has slight lean, some fading to cloth, minor shelfwear. Jacket has mild toning, sunning to spine. A few small tears neatly repaired on verso; chip to one corner. Front flap creased. Overall, bright and clean. (Inventory #: 53009)