THE BIRD'S NEST

First edition, first printing. Inscribed presentation copy, signed by the author. Original dark blue paper-covered boards with a red cloth spine lettered in silver, in the Philip Grushkin designed dustwrapper. A very good or better copy, the binding firm with the slightest lean to the spine, the boards with some faint scuffs, the top corner of the lower board with a minor bump. The contents with a couple of light spots to the front pastedown and free endpaper and a small, light stain to the closed text-block fore-edge, are otherwise clean throughout and without previous owners' stamps or inscriptions. Complete with the lightly rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper that is a touch faded to the spine and a little dusty to the rear panel. Not price-clipped ($3.50 on the front flap). Scarce in presentation state.

Inscribed by Shirley Jackson in blue ink on the front free endpaper "For Eleanor and Franklin Ford. / Affectionately. / Shirley Jackson. / 1958". The author's third novel, a quietly unsettling and dryly humorous tale of a young woman with dissociative identity disorder. Jackson's most direct exploration of mental illness, a recurring theme in her work that is also vital to her novels 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' and 'Hangsaman'. The basis for the 1957 film noir drama 'Lizzie', directed by Hugo Haas and starring Eleanor Parker. An excellent example of a scarce signed Jackson novel.