The Right Stuff

New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979. First edition, third printing. 8vo. Light gray cloth; facsimile signature stamped in silver on cover; stamped in red, blue, and silver on spine; minor shelf wear to head and tail of spine; dust jacket bumped at head and tail of spine; near fine dust jacket; very minor edge wear. First edition, third printing. 8vo. A near fine copy of Wolfe's bestselling nonfiction book about the late 1950s test pilots whose dangerous experimental flights were instrumental to the development of America's Mercury and Apollo space programs. Wolfe conducted years of research preparing the text, which was initially inspired by his 1972 Rolling Stone assignment to cover Apollo 17, the last NASA mission to the Moon (eventually published as a four-part series titled "Post-Orbital Remorse"). The book was later made into a popular 1983 film of the same name starring Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, and Dennis Quaid.