Description
First edition of The Barbarous Coast by Ross Macdonald, inscribed to the Edgar Award winning author of In the Heat of the Night, John Ball.
Octavo, [8], 247pp, [1]. Patterned red paper boards, title in black on spine. Top edge dyed light blue. Stated “First Edition” on copyright page. Solid text block, occasional thumb marks, light wear at tips of the spine, left lean to text block. Faint dampstain at lower left corner of text block. In the publisher’s first state dust jacket, $2.95 retail price on front flap, toning to spine, previously folded along spine, small chip at head of the spine, a very good example.
(Bruccoli A12.1) (Hubin II:I, 527)
Inscribed on the front free endpaper: “Santa Barbara, Calif. / Sept. 22, 1977 / To John and Pat Ball, who does write! Ken.” Author Ken Millar wrote crime fiction under the pseudonym Ross Macdonald from the mid-1950s forward.
A great association copy between two writers.
The recipient of this copy, John Ball (1911-1988), was an American novelist best known for In the Heat of the Night (1965). The book won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was adapted into the 1967 Oscar-Winning film starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. Ball was married to Patricia “Pat” Hamilton Ball, who was mentioned in the inscription from Ken Millar.
