"THE COLLUSION OF GOOD AND EVIL": FIRST EDITION OF SHIP OF FOOLS, INSCRIBED WITHIN DAYS OF PUBLICATION BY KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

PORTER, Katherine Anne. Ship of Fools. Boston Toronto: Atlantic Monthly / Little, Brown, (1962). Octavo, original yellow cloth, marbled endpapers, original dust jacket. $1400.

First edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's first and only full-length novel—a "miraculously brilliant book" (New York Times)—inscribed on the half title by Porter mere days after publication, "For Richard E. Blackshaw, Katherine Anne Porter 5th April 1962."

Published on April Fool's Day in 1962 and inspired by a 1931 trip to Europe aboard a German passenger ship, Porter's "detailed notes about her fellow passengers… would grow into the pointed satire of her microcosmic account of a trouble world poised on the brink of WWII" (ANB). "Porter's carefully crafted, ironic style is perfectly suited to the allegorical exploration of the collusion of good and evil that is her theme" (Britannica). Ship of Fools has been praised as "a miraculously brilliant book… As in any great work of art, something larger is in the air and we know we are in another ship as well, another voyage, sailing to another harbor" (New York Times). Basis for the 1965 Academy Award-winning film directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret and a stellar cast. Bruccoli & Clark, 301.

A fine inscribed copy.