A WILD SWAN AND OTHER TALES

New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/As New Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015. Hardcover. As New/As New. First Edition/First Printing. 12 pages. Collection of short stories, presented as modern fairy tales. One of Michael Cunningham's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly copies that are signed on the publisher's bookplate. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. "Autographed Copy" green round sticker pasted in front. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Michael Cunningham's "The Wild Swan And Other Tales". The fairy tale as inspiration, as pure pleasure, and as moral parable. "The people and the talismans of lands far, far away, the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: The years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half-cured of a curse. Reimagined by one of the greatest storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true" (Publisher's blurb) . "We want escapism, of course, but there's another, more complicated, kind of escapism that we also want - an escape into a different, possibly larger, more immediately meaningful world. Fairy tales, movies, novels, they all take us out of the confines of ourselves, of our lives, even if we're perfectly happy with our lives. Because there are other lives too" (Michael Cunningham) . An absolute "must-have" title for Michael Cunningham collectors. This Autographed Copy is very boldly and beautifully signed, placed, and dated (two days after publication) in black pen-marker on the title page by the author: "Michael Cunningham November 12, 2015 NYC". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a bookplate. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed, placed, and post-publication dated copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Cunningham launched the book in a one-time-only appearance in New York City, and did not tour to promote the book. So the publisher issued a limited number of signed bookplates to satisfy public demand. A rare signed copy thus. "A Home At The End of The World" was selected as one of "The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950" by The Modern Library, the most prestigious list of its kind for the period 1950-1999. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and The Pen/Faulkner Award in 1999 for "The Hours". One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER COPY OF THIS TITLE AND MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0374290253.