Search Results: different drummer by kelley

New York: Doubleday and Company, 1962. First Edition. Near Fine/Very Good+. First edition, first printing. Signed by William Melvin Kelley on the front free endpaper with a lengthy, very personal inscription to Elizabeth Campbell, who was the second wife of photographer Gordon Parks, "6/14/62 For Liz:-- You must know, Skinny, that I'm pulling for you, that I wish you success in all things that you decide to do. All that you can wish or hope for is that the people you love get a little lucky, that they make the right guesses and choices. I'm sorry that's all I can give you. Love, [signed] Kelley." According to a relative of the author's this inscription was on the day of Campbell and Parks' wedding. Campbell and Kelley had grown up together, and her marrying Parks had come as a surprise. Kelley didn't sign many books. [xii], 223 pp. Original cloth, spine lettered in black. Near Fine with a little wear to head, very slight lean, endpapers slightly foxed, pages toned, in a Very Good+ unclipped dust… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1962. First Edition, Second Printing. Hardcover. Octavo, 223 pages. Very Good, in a Very Good minus dust jacket. Dust jacket spine black and gold with black and beige titling, dust jacket protected with a mylar covering. Some rubbing and shelfwear, including tears to extremities, primarily the top and bottom edge of the front cover of dust jacket, small chip on tail of dust jacket spine, light foxing to interior of dust jacket. Light foxing to edges of text block and edges of boards, former owner's name on the front free end paper. Price uncut "$3.95". Signed by Kelley on the half-title page. First Edition, Presumed Second Printing, with no edition statement on the copyright page and gutter code 'D38'. Scarce in any format, especially scarce signed. Shelved in Case 2. William Melvin Kelley's debut novel won the John Hay Whitney Foundation Award and Rosenthal Foundation Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Kelley is credited with being… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1962. First printing. Very good plus in like dust jacket.. First edition of William Melvin Kelley's first novel, the story of an exodus of the Black population from a fictional Southern US American state after a traumatic event. Tucker Caliban's family suffered for generations at the hands of the racist townspeople of fictional Sutton, so he literally salts the earth and leaves town - the rest of the Black population follows. Publisher Jon Butler, quoted in THE GUARDIAN, observes that Kelley's choice to tell the story of A DIFFERENT DRUMMER through the voices of the white populace, apparently clueless as to why they were left behind, is "a scorching indictment of the establishment's inability to engage with inequality that still speaks to us today, particularly in the age of Black Lives Matter." 8.25'' x 5.25''. Original tan cloth-backed black boards with black spine lettering. Original unclipped ($3.95) black, white, and gold dust jacket designed by… Read More

New York: Doubleday, 1962. 223pp. Gray cloth spine, black boards, black titles in spine. white residue on 3 small areas of spine, but no damage to contents of book. Binding tight, spine straight, corners solid. Pages clean and unmarked apart from small notations relating to book on FFEP. Dust jacket intact, not price clipped, with original $3.95 price on front flap. Front flap creased. Chipping to head and foot of spine. First edition of Kelley's uncommon first book, complete with well-preserved dust jacket. . First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo.

London: Hutchinson & Co, 1963. First British Edition. Near Fine/Very Good+. First British edition. 223 pp. Black cloth with silver and red lettering on spine. Near Fine with tiny nick in spine in Very Good+ unclipped dust jacket, slightly worn at head and tail, closed tear in top of back panel, verso lightly foxed along folds and edges. Slight mustiness. Rare in both British and American editions. The African-American author and professor's best-known novel, also his debut. He coined the term "woke" in a 1962 op-ed. Nearly a year after his death in 2017 interest in his works began to revive with a piece in The New Yorker dubbing him "The Lost Giant of American Literature.

New York: Bantam, 1964. Paperback. 182p., good first mass-market paperback printing of Kelley's first book in wraps. Bantam H2740. African American novelist.