"THE MAN IN BLACK FLED ACROSS THE DESERT, AND THE GUNSLINGER FOLLOWED": INSCRIBED BY STEPHEN KING

KING, Stephen. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. (West Kingston, Rhode Island): Donald M. Grant, (1982). Octavo, original cream cloth, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket, publisher's slipcase. $13,500.

Signed limited first edition, lettered copy K from an edition of only 52 copies, illustrated with five full-page color plates, color endpapers and black-and-white vignettes by acclaimed fantasy artist Michael Whelan, signed on the limitation page by both King and Whelan, additionally inscribed on the half title "For Jana—Welcome to the weird, weird West! Stephen King 8/8/83."

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." When King typed those words on an old Underwood in 1970, he began a daring fantasy saga that would be 34 years in the completion. Gunslinger, the first book in his Dark Tower series, is "an impressive work of mythic magnitude that may turn out to be King's greatest literary achievement" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). The novel is "strange, scary and utterly gripping—the perfect start to an unforgettable journey… In Roland Deschain, the titular Gunslinger, there's a superb, violent, powerful and thoughtful protagonist—Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name by way of Robert Browning's poem, Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower Came" (Guardian). With illustrations by Whelan, a 14-time Hugo award winner whose art "stands up to any [the 20th] century has produced" (Village Voice). "First Edition" stated on copyright page. Issued simultaneously with a signed limited edition of 500 copies. Brooks A18. See Fantasy and Horror 6-194. Limitation page with inked note reading "A gift from Stephen King / Cove Lovell, Maine / August, 1983."

Book in fine condition, in a very nearly fine dust jacket with slightest traces of rubbing to spine; slipcase with minor toning. An attractive inscribed copy.