SCARCE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF NELSON ALGREN’S WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, INSCRIBED BY HIM TO ACTRESS GERALDINE PAGE

ALGREN, Nelson. A Walk on the Wild Side. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, (1956). Octavo, original half yellow paper boards, original dust jacket.

First edition of Algren’s “most critically acclaimed and best-known novel” (ANB), an exceptional presentation/association copy inscribed by him in the year of publication to his close friend, actress Geraldine Page, “For Geraldine from Nelson, With admiration and fondness for real, Fritzel’s — [unclear] ‘56.”

“Asked to name the best American authors of his day, Ernest Hemingway is said to have replied: ‘Faulkner. (Pause.) Algren.’ Breaking into the fight talk that was one of their tools, Hemingway said, ‘Mr. Algren can hit with both hands and move around, and he will kill you if you’re not awfully careful” (New York Times). Set during the Great Depression, this is Algren’s “most critically acclaimed and best-known novel… Considered by some literary scholars as the last in a line of great Chicago writers, Algren had the ability to shock his readers with what critic Herbert Mitgang described as ‘hammerblows in prose.’ In his works Algren depicts seedy hotels, dirty bars, and dingy police stations and jails while at the same time demonstrating a sympathy and tenderness for the pimps, whores, con men, and losers with whom he identified” (ANB). Algren’s novel was the basis for the 1962 film of the same title starring Laurence Harvey and Jane Fonda. With “First Printing, 1956” on copyright page. Bruccoli & Clark, I:4. This scarce presentation/association copy is warmly inscribed by him to one of his closest longtime friends, actress Geraldine Page, who grew up in Algren’s Chicago and first studied acting there. In an interview Algren once singled out Page as an actress who is “connected with something that expresses millions of women… the way Hemingway affected people” (Donohue, Conversations, 197-8). In his memoir of Algren, Beat novelist John Clellon Holmes recalled a night in 1959 when Algren had plans to meet Page in New York after her performance with Paul Newman in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth. Algren spoke of buying Page flowers for their “date,” and told Holmes: “I usually see her these days when I‘m in town”(Arm: A Memoir). The “Fritzel’s” in Algren’s inscription is most likely the famous Chicago restaurant.

Book fine; light edge-wear, faint soiling to near-fine dust jacket.