On the River Styx and Other Stories
New York, NY, U.S.A. Random House, 1989. First Edition, First Printing. Cloth & Boards. Near Fine / Near Fine in Plastic Cover. Item #5095
ISBN: 0394553993
A lovely collection of short stories by the winner of the National Book Award for "Snow Leopard" and signed by him. In near fine red and cream cloth & boards with a tiny ink mark on the lower edge and a small p.o. name on the bottom front endpaper. The near fine dust jacket is complete with very minor aging. A nice copy.
This is a collection of 10 short stories written over the course of 40 years, arranged in chronological order according to publication date, with some written before the writer even graduated college. A life long advocate for the preservation of wildlife, Matthiessen was an exhaustive traveler who included his experiences in both his fiction and non fiction. One of his well known non-fiction books, "Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark" (1971) detailed his experiences with a diving team who attempted the first underwater images of the creature. A film based on this book, "Blue Water, Blue Death," inspired "Jaws".
Matthiessen is the only writer to win the National Book Award for both fiction ("Shadow Country" 2008) and non fiction ("The Snow Leopard" 1979). Many writers expressed his influence over their craft, including William Styron, Thomas Pynchon and Truman Capote. Matthiessen himself referenced the Russians as being a strong influence over him, including Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Conrad, with Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" being a favorite re-read.
Price: $94.50 other currencies