Signed first printings (all) of Auster's beloved and best-known work, a postmodern deconstruction of the detective novel.
Fine in fine jackets.
Price: $3,200.00
"We exist for ourselves, perhaps, and at times we even have a glimmer of who we are, but in the end we can never be sure, and as our lives go on, we become more and more opaque to ourselves, more and more aware of our own incoherence. No one can cross the boundary into another — for the simple reason that no one can gain access to himself."
Initially inspired by a wrong number placed to his house asking for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Auster's interlocking series of novels take as their starting point classic mysteries, but use them to investigate more existential and philosophical ideas. As he later said of the trilogy: "[The detective novel] was useful to me in the same way old musical hall routines and vaudeville were useful to Beckett in writing WAITING FOR GODOT. Or the way romances were useful to Cervantes in writing DON QUIXOTE." A beautiful set of this contemporary classic.
Read more: Birgitte Siegumfeldt, "Paul Auster: I Don't Even Know if The New York Trilogy is Very Good," LitHub.
First edition. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, (1985-1986). Three volumes; 7.5'' x 5''. Original full blue cloth. In original unclipped (no price, as issued) color photographic jackets designed by Katie Messborn (CITY first state without publisher's seal on spine). Blue endpapers. 208, 104, 184 pages. Each volume signed by Auster in ink on title page. Bright, tight, clean and sharp overall.
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