QUARREL & QUANDARY: ESSAYS

New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 247 pages. The author's fourth collection of essays. One of Cynthia Ozick's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Cynthia Ozick's "Quarrel & Quandary: Essays". Twenty pieces on subjects as diverse as Franz Kafka, Henry James (the greatest influence on her work), Gertrude Stein, William Styron, and a controversial, quarrelsome essay on Anne Frank. "I urge all lovers of American prose to read it. Cynthia Ozick is, for my money, the most accomplished and graceful literary stylist of our time. Her pieces have genuine durability. These are great essays" (The New York Times). A cult writer once upon a time, Cynthia Ozick is now firmly established as one of our finest writers. It took a very long time for the reading public as well as the critics to realize her greatness. By her own admission, it was a struggle to achieve the recognition she deserved and the belated fame is more "folly" than anything else, as one of her collections aver. She is writing in three literary traditions simultaneously, all of them at the most profound level imaginable: The ancient Jewish, the modern European, and the Jamesian American. Hence, the dazzling allusiveness, poignant beauty, and sheer intensity of her work. Her prose style - imbricated, brachiate, and filigreed, to borrow three of her own favorite words - is a paradox: The rush of metaphors arrives at and realizes a work of luminous beauty. An absolute "must-have" title for Cynthia Ozick collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Cynthia Ozick. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great collection. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws or are in subsequent printing. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for "Fame & Folly". Finalist for the National Book Award in 1997 for "The Puttermesser Papers". Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001 for "Quarrel & Quandary". Recipient of the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CYNTHIA OZICK TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0375410619.