Ironweed

The third novel in William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle series, Ironweed (1983) is set during the Great Depression. It follows Francis Phelan, a drifter from Albany, New York. After a devastating accident where he killed his child, he becomes a wandering alcoholic, but at the beginning of the novel has returned home. Detailing Francis’s life following his homecoming, Ironwood tells the tragic tale of a man haunted by his past. The striking novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1984 and was adapted into a film in 1987.

The first edition of Ironwood was published in 1983 by The Viking Press in New York, N.Y. The novel is hardcover, with a dust jacket designed by Neil Stuart, and containing a photo on the cover taken by Margaret Bourke-White. This edition is 227 pages long and has the original price of $14.75 printed on the top right corner of the inside cover of the dust jacket. There are two primary identifying features of this edition. First, there is no photo of the author printed on the inside back of the dust jacket, as there is in other printings. Second, on the copyright page, “first published in 1983 by The Viking Press” is printed below the copyright information, instead of above the logo of The Viking Press, which is where it’s located in subsequent printings. While some might mistake the misspelling of “perceived” on page 205, line 22, as an identifying point, it is not, as this misspelling continues through the third printing.