OBLIVION, ADVANCE REVIEW COPY, INSCRIBED BY DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

WALLACE, David Foster. Oblivion: Stories. New York, Boston: Little, Brown, 2004. Octavo, original blue and teal paper boards, original dust jacket. $1200.

First edition, advance review copy of Wallace's third and final collection of short stories, a distinctive presentation/association copy linked to New York City's iconic Strand bookstore and its longtime manager, inscribed on the title page by Wallace, "For Monika [three vertical dots] Craig w/ Best Wishes David Foster Wallace," with his caricature of two eyes and his arrow pointed to his printed name with his characteristic line drawn through the name.

The eight stories in this volume, selected as a 2004 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, display "big plots, absurd Beckettian humor and science-fiction-height ideas portrayed vis-a-vis slow, realistic stream of consciousness" (Time). The story "Good Old Neon" was included the collection The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002. This presentation/association copy is inscribed by Wallace to Craig Anderson and his wife Monika Anderson. Craig Anderson has been the longtime manager of the Rare Book Room at Manhattan's Strand Bookstore, which was named an historic city landmark in 2019. In an interview with The New York Times, he said: "I always consider that after graduating from Columbia… the Strand is where I really got my education'… Over the years, the Strand has counted among its regular customers writers Anais Nin and Saul Bellow; Senator Mark Hatfield; David Hockney, the painter, and William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence," and its list of famous employees includes Patti Smith.

A fine copy.