WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE

First edition with these illustrations, first printing. Signed by the author of the afterword Donna Tartt and the illustrator Angie Hoffmeister. Issued with an illustration print by Hoffmeister depicting Merricat with her amulets that is not published in the book, housed in a blue card envelope. Original blue cloth with titles in black and white to the spine and illustrations in black and white to the upper and lower boards. Housed in an illustrated solander box with a magnetised central opening. Top edge black foil. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrated with seven colour plates by Angie Hoffmeister, including two double-page spreads, as well as black and white tailpieces. A fine copy, the binding square and tight, the contents clean and bright throughout and without previous owners' stamps or inscriptions. The box, illustrated to look like the Blackwood house and opening down the middle of the front board to mimic the doors, is lightly rubbed at the corners, otherwise remaining fine. The print is also in fine condition.

Issued in a limited edition of 500 copies, this example is numbered 81 and is signed by Donna Tartt and Angie Hoffmeister on a limitation sheet that is tipped in on the flyleaf. A carefully and beautifully designed edition of Shirley Jackson's final novel, published three years before her tragically early death at age 48 in 1965. This eerie tale of isolation, witchcraft and sisterhood is often considered to be Jackson's masterpiece. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 2018 directed by Stacie Passon and starring Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, Sebastian Stan and Crispin Glover.