The Habit of Being: Letters.: Edited and with an Introduction by Sally Fitzgerald.

New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,, 1979. Robert Giroux's copy, with thanks from the editor and dedicatee First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the editor on the front free endpaper, "For Bob, most patient of publishers, and dear friend, Sally. New York 15 March 1979". Loosely inserted is an autograph letter signed to Giroux from Regina Clive, Flannery O'Connor's mother and the dedicatee of this title. Sally Fitzgerald met O'Connor in the autumn of 1949, when the author boarded at her Connecticut home while finishing Wise Blood (1952). Fitzgerald, a "homemaker and occasional book reviewer who once considered a nun's life" (Woo), became the young writer's confidant, editor, and eventually her literary steward. O'Connor and Giroux were both godparents of Fitzgerald's third child, and after O'Connor's death in 1964, Giroux asked Fitzgerald to edit her letters. Though self-effacing in both her introduction and interviews, Fitzgerald won the confidence of Regina Clive, which was no small feat, and is today considered the pre-eminent O'Connor scholar. Regina Clive's letter begins, "Dear Bob, I was very pleased that you wanted me to autograph your book. My pen wasn't working very well so please excuse that". She goes on to thank Giroux for sending reviews and asks him to extend her thanks to Peggy Miller, Roger Straus's secretary of more than forty years and a lynchpin of the publishing house. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine and front cover lettered and ruled in gilt with publisher's device in green, top edge yellow. With dust jacket. Spine ends just bumped, boards slightly bowed, faint glue marks from binding on rear joint, small mark at lower edge; jacket lightly toned, a few nicks and creases at edges, unclipped: a near-fine copy in like jacket.