Bernard Malamud
New York, 1952 
 
First edition, first printing. Fine red cloth book with minor bumping to spine ends and tiny dent to top edge. Near Fine unclipped, bright jacket with minor crinkling to spine ends and the upper portion of rear cover, spine just a touch toned. A very nice copy of a book that’s not as rare to find signed as folks would have you think, but truly rare with a solid provenance like this.
 
Inscribed and dated in the month of publication(July, 1952) on the front free end paper for his high school English teacher, poet Florence Ripley Mastin, whose classes he described as unusually exciting. An important provenance involving a person uniquely influential in the author’s writing development. And as you know, this book was the basis for the 1984 movie of the same name starring Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Kim Basinger.