THE VIOLET HOUR: GREAT WRITERS AT THE END

New York City, NY: The Dial Press, 2016. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: The Dial Press, 2016. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 310 pages. The author's book-length account on subject. Now considered a contemporary classic. 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 Katie Roiphe's "The Violet Hour: Great Writers At The End". How six iconic writers in the Western tradition, very different from one another, faced The End to their productive and meaningful lives: Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas, Maurice Sendak, and James Salter. Regardless of the actual time of death, Western culture views death as night, the "violet hour, the evening hour that strives homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea" (T. S. Eliot). "In the final acts of each of these creative geniuses are examples of courage, passion, self-delusion, pointless suffering, and superb devotion. There are also moments of sublime insight and understanding" (Publisher's blurb). "A beautiful book. The intensity of these 'passages' is deeply beguiling" (The New York Times). For these great writers (and for their fellow-writer Roiphe), death is a meaningful part of life that undermines meaning itself. Why? Because when the moment comes, we see what we have achieved (in terms of career, wealth, social status, and recognition) in its proper perspective: As nothing in the face of death. But: We also realize that what finally matters is our "track record" as human beings, that is, not as achievers, but what we have done for others: Those we have known - family, friends, colleagues, loved ones - and in a profound sense, through the way we have lived our lives, those we don't and will never know: Our fellow human beings. Western culture makes us think of mortality merely as two kinds of speed: (mercifully) sudden or (agonizingly) slow. Roiphe describes a third, more meaningful kind: Heroic. After all, unlike most of us, these writers have already ensured that they will live on through their work (which Roiphe celebrates), have therefore somehow outwitted death, and even achieved immortality. And yet, as one of them very famously wrote, the fully human way is to "rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Dylan Thomas). An absolute "must-have" title for Katie Roiphe collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed, dated (two days after publication), and inscribed in black ink-pen on the title page by the author: "For - Warmly, Katie Roiphe 3/10/16". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The recipient, who is named, is a friend of the author, and cannot be named here. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed, post-publication dated, and inscribed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: This is a copy of the true First Edition. By the time Roiphe launched her book, it was already a bestseller. Copies available online are in subsequent printing. A rare signed copy thus. One of the most brilliant American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER KATIE ROIPHE TITLE IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0385343590.