NY: Vintage Books, 2001. xiii, 801pp. Pictorial wraps. Textblock lightly toned, else fine. Signed, dated, and inscribed by Delany at title page.
First Vintage books printing of Delany's experimental post-apocalyptic epic, with a foreword by William Gibson carried over from the 1996 Wesleyan Press edition. This copy from the library of former executive director of New York's Anthology Film Archives, Robert Haller (1942-2021); signed and inscribed to him (mistakenly, as "Robert Howard") by Delany in 2001. A runaway bestseller upon publication in 1975, Dhalgren also generated significant hostility, particularly within the science fiction community, where its sprawling structure, queer sexuality, and lack of clear resolution proved difficult to reconcile within the genre's relatively conservative boundaries. Subsequent evaluations have proved much kinder, and the book is now rightly considered a classic of avant-garde SF, and one of Delany's most complex and thematically ambitious works.
