BEGLEY, Louis. [Sonny Mehta].
About Schmidt.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
$1,500.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-152626
+$500
First Edition of About Schmidt; Inscribed by Louis Begley to Sonny Mehta, Legendary Editor in Chief of Alfred A. Knopf
First edition of Louis Begley's acclaimed novel of a retired Wall Street lawyer's late-life reckoning, a modern classic of manners and quiet melancholy. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, "For Sonny Mehta with thanks, Louis Begley 5/ix/96." The recipient, Sonny Mehta, was the legendary editor in chief and president of Alfred A. Knopf and the book's own publisher, one of the most influential figures in American literary publishing. Born in India and educated at Cambridge, Mehta made his name at Pan Books in London before taking the helm at Knopf in 1987, where over more than three decades he published an extraordinary roster of the finest writers of his time. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Carol Devin Carson. An exceptional association.
About Schmidt is Louis Begley's mordant and beautifully observed novel of Albert Schmidt, a newly retired and recently widowed Wall Street lawyer adrift on the East End of Long Island, whose comfortable certainties are unsettled when his only daughter announces her engagement to a younger colleague from his old firm. A finely wrought portrait of privilege, loneliness, and late-life disorientation, the novel confirmed Begley's standing as one of the most elegant American novelists of his generation. Himself a distinguished Manhattan lawyer who did not publish his first novel until his late fifties, Begley drew deeply on his intimate knowledge of that rarefied world. About Schmidt was adapted into the acclaimed 2002 film directed by Alexander Payne, with Jack Nicholson in the title role, though the screen version departed substantially from the book.
About Schmidt.
$1,500.00
In Stock