| About
a year ago, I lost an online bid for a 1974 hard back of Gladiator
to a fellow named Ward Arrington down in Florida. I e-mailed Ward
to congratulate him and ask about his interest in the book.
I found out he was a book dealer who specialized in titles related
to Florida, Wylie's home state. He pursued copies of Gladiator
because of their collectability, but he also had a unique connection
to its author. Turns out Wylie and Ward had actually lived on
the same street at one point in their lives!
Ward's collection was very interesting. He had some stuff I'd
never seen.
Like
this one-of-a-kind beauty.
It
is a first edition, hard cover, inscribed in revealing and lengthy
prose by Philip Wylie. These images are all reprinted courtesy
of Ward. Thank you Ward. Now all of you go buy
some books from him.
In
the script, Wylie acknowledges that Gladiator was his "first
novel accepted by Knopf" who actually published Wylie's two
other novels, Heavy Laden and Babes and Sucklings,
before Gladiator. That makes Gladiator
both his first and last book for Knopf. He candidly discusses
his disappointment with his publishing career to date and why
he left Knopf. I think the inscription is from an early
point in his career. He's still pretty hot over those first novels.
Other
little nuggets we learn from this scan: Wylie submitted a version
of the novel in 1926. Also, after re-reading the Moskowitz
intro in the 1974 Classics of SF edition, I think he may have
been aware of this inscription, even using it as a source. Or
maybe Wylie's conflict with Knopf was common knowledge when Moskowitz
wrote his piece. This was the first I'd heard of it.
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