Slouching Towards Bethlehem. by DIDION, Joan - 1968

New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux,, 1968. The world as I had understood it no longer existed First edition, first printing, of the author's first work of nonfiction. A collection of essays originally written by Didion for the Saturday Evening and other magazines about her experiences in California, this title was praised upon publication by The New York Times for its "grace, sophistication, nuance, and irony" (Wakefield). "Each of the three sections contained in Slouching Towards Bethlehem in some way, directly or indirectly, deals with the destruction or end of an older ordering of things. Divided into essays confronting cultural issues ("Life Styles in the Golden Land"), personal issues ("Personals"), and a hybrid of the two (her trademark, such as those issues in "Seven Places of the Mind"), Didion seems to offer her author self as a center, but even she appears to admit that any single self fails as its own axis" (Houston & Lombardi, p. 39) Octavo. Original orange cloth-backed grey paper boards, spine lettered in gilt, floral ornaments in blind on front cover, yellow endpapers, top edge pink. With dust jacket. Edges lightly rubbed and toned, lower corners bumped with a touch of wear. A very good copy in like jacket, mildly toned, minor creasing to extremities, tips nicked, else bright. Lynne Marie Houston & William V. Lombardi, Reading Joan Didion, 2009; Dan Wakefield, "Places, People and Personalities", The New York Times, 21 June 1968.