“The Barber” in New Signatures I: A Selection of College Writing
Prairie City, IL: Press of James A. Decker, 1947.
First printing. 178 pp., 5.25 x 8 inches. Cloth over boards. Light wear to extremities of cloth, rubbing to cover and spine lettering; tasteful bookplate on front pastedown and age-toning to page edges, otherwise very good. Item #4688
Flannery O’Connor's first book appearance, a short story published while she was a student at the University of Iowa, after a handful of magazine appearances in the year or two preceding.
The story appears on pages 113-124 of an anthology edited by Alan Swallow. The cover and spine give the title as “New Signatures 1948” and the halftitle as “American Signatures”; Swallow (then at the University of Denver) contributes an introduction. The collection includes early appearances by John Hollander and Warren Miller as well.
The Decker Press is best known for having published the first books of Louis Zukofsky, Lorine Niedecker, and others, though is also notorious for the sensational ending of the enterprise. This, like many of the Decker publications, is quite uncommon.
Price: $200.00