Vidal

1948 · ref. 509163 — Dutton 1948. First Edition. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. NEAR FINE/NEAR FINE. First Printing. SIGNED on title and subsequently INSCRIBED by Gore Vidal on FFEP to his personal friends Stathis Orphanos and Ralph Sylvester: 'For Stathis and Ralph.' Stathis was a noted photographer and shot Vidal on multiple occasions including the portrait used on the cover of his memoir. Stathis and Ralph also operated the Los Angeles fine-press publishing firm 'Sylvester and Orphanos' which published Vidal's Sex is Politics. 314pp. Black buckram gilt spine lettering blindstamp to front cover. Some trivial toning to pages and endpapers otherwise very clean and sharp; Dust jacket has some light rubbing to extremities and a very small chip to head of spine. Vidal's third novel The City and the Pillar is recognized as the first post-war novel to portray an openly gay protagonist whose homosexuality is treated as natural and appropriate. The novel met with some scandal: in his autobiography Vidal notes that the New York Times refused an advertisement for the book and that for a period of six years following no major newspaper or periodical would review his work. He quotes an editor at Dutton as saying 'You will never be forgiven for this book. Twenty years from now you will still be attacked for it.' Vidal also notes private enthusiasm expressed by his LA friends and fellow Gay writers Christopher Isherwood Thomas Mann and Steven Spender. While Spender averred that the novel was essentially autobiographical Vidal denied it. Dutton hardcover