“…LIGHTER AND QUICKER AND QUIETER, HE RUNS”

UPDIKE, John. Rabbit, Run. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960. Octavo, original half green cloth, original dust jacket. $1250.

First edition of Updike’s second novel, the first book in his Rabbit tetralogy.

"Updike's choice of Rabbit Angstrom, in Rabbit, Run, was inspired, one of those happy, instinctive accidents that so often shape a literary career" (Books of the Century, 450). "'The great urgencies of sex and death,' as Updike calls them, provide the fields of force in Rabbit, Run. Rabbit Angstrom is terrified by death and anything which reminds him of it. He is compelled by sex, for him a transcendence of death as well as the only real satisfaction provided by a banal existence… Whenever circumstances threaten his belief that 'there is an unseen world' in which perfection is possible, Rabbit runs…" (Vinson, 1399). Owner signature.

Book with generally clean interior, light toning to extreme edges of boards, slight wear to extremities. Dust jacket with light toning to spine, shallow chipping to spine ends, three closed tears, light soiling to rear panel. An extremely good copy.