Ask the Dust

Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1980. Limited Edition. Fine. First thus, limited issue. Copy #53 of 75 signed by John Fante and Charles Bukowski, handbound by Earle Gray in printed paper-covered boards over patterned spine cloth, paper label to spine. Fine in a slightly rubbed and cloudy original acetate wrapper. Rare publisher's prospectus laid in. The deluxe Black Sparrow Press re-issue of Fante's best-known novel, first published in 1939. It introduced the Italian-American L.A. novelist's work to a new generation of readers not long before his death, thanks in no small part to Bukowski. "Fante was my god," he writes in the introduction. (Inventory #: 140947915)