The Movie-goer

New York: Knopf, (1961). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 242 pp. Original quarter cardinal cloth over slate paper-covered boards, stamped in gold, black, in original unclipped ($3.95) dust-jacket. Edge wear with tears, loss and chips/fray. Wrinkling and handling to jacket. Tape repairs to corners and spine. Protected in archival mylar. Book shows wear. Former rental book. Tape ghost marks to panels. Previous owner’s bookplate to front paste down. Book rental stamp to ffep, date written to rfep. Handling wear to edges with smudges to panels.

Dust Jacket: Good

Hardcover: Good

“The Moviegoer is the debut novel by Walker Percy, first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961. It won the U.S. National Book Award. Time included the novel in its "Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Moviegoer sixtieth on its list of the hundred best English-language novels of the twentieth century. It is published in the UK by Methuen. The novel is heavily influenced by the existentialist themes of authors like Søren Kierkegaard, whom Percy read extensively. Unlike many dark didactic existentialist novels (including Percy's later work), The Moviegoer has a light poetic tone. It was Percy's first, most famous, and most widely praised novel, and established him as one of the major voices in Southern literature. The novel also draws on elements of Dante by paralleling the themes of Binx Bolling's life to that of the narrator of the Divine Comedy.”