"Oh," I said, "that illuminated manuscript."

THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT

By Robert B. Parker

1974

Inscribed first printing of Parker's debut crime novel, in which private detective Spenser is hired to recover a distressed medieval manuscript held for ransom by criminals with no respect for literature or the niceties of the rare book trade.

Near fine in a near fine jacket.

Price: $600.00

THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT

"Look, Dr. Forbes, I went to college once, I don't wear my hat indoors. And if a clue comes along and bites me on the ankle, I grab it. I am not, however, an Oxford don. I am a private detective."

First of Parker's long-running and highly successful series of 'Spenser' novels, inspiration for the '80s TV series "Spenser: For Hire" and the recent film Spenser Confidential (2020). Parker, a onetime English professor at Northeastern who wrote his doctoral dissertation on "The Violent Hero" in the hard-boiled detective novel, set his debut novel at an unnamed Boston university full of student radicals, criminal schemes, and dark departmental politics: realism, more or less.

The Object

First edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. 8.25'' x 5.5''. Original brown cloth with ornate "G" stamped in darker brown. In original price-clipped dust jacket, designed by Paul Bacon. Tan endpapers, red topstain. [6], 186 pages. Inscribed (with two different pens) by Parker on front endpaper: "Fletcher, / with all / my love / Robert Parker." Some minor rubbing to jacket. Tiny spot or two of soil. Touches of shelfwear to the jacket. Overall, bright and sound.

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