The Executioner's Song

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. SIGNED. 1056pp. Large octavo [24 cm] Blue cloth over boards with the title in copper and silver on the backstrip. Spine a bit indented. Faded strip to the foot of the backstrip measuring 1/4" deep. Text block just barely beginning to pull away from the spine at the foot, but still firmly holding by the endpaper. In the dust jacket, with rubbing to the surface, and light creasing to the edges. This copy is inscribed by the author, in the year of publication, on the front free endpaper: "To _____ / after talking faster (?) / but enjoying it / cheers / Norman Mailer / Oct '79." An inscribed first edition of Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning true crime novel depicting the events leading up to Gary Gilmore's execution by firing squad on January 17, 1977. His execution ended a de facto nationwide moratorium on capital punishment that had lasted nearly ten years. Mailer's book was adapted into a teleplay for a film (1982; released theatrically in Europe) that starred Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore, in an Emmy Award-winning performance.