Light in August. by FAULKNER, William - 1932

New York: Harrison Smith & Robert Haas,, 1932. Inscribed by the author to his close childhood friend First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his close childhood friend on the front free endpaper, "For Myrtle Ramey, Oxford Miss 30 May 1934, William Faulkner". Myrtle Ramey and Faulkner met in third grade of Oxford Graded Public School. Faulkner skipped second grade at the age of eight and joined Ramey's class in September 1906. Ramey was only permitted to attend school part time due to her ill health, but nevertheless the two struck up a close friendship. Beginning with The Marble Faun in 1924, Ramey was one of a very select few to whom he sent copies of his books; despite Ramey's marriage in 1926, the majority of his inscriptions persisted in using her maiden name. Faulkner clearly valued Ramey's opinion on his writing, also sending her in 1924 a sheaf of twelve typewritten poems (his "Mississippi Poems") and a seven page essay entitled "Verse, Old and Nascent: A Pilgrimage", for her to critique. Light in August is widely considered one of the great novels of the 20th century. "Few American novels are so lavish in dramatic incident, so infused with images of sensation, so precisely fixed in place and weather" (Irving Howe, William Faulkner: A Critical Study, 1957, pp. 200-14). Inscribed copies of this work are notably uncommon, with just four other such copies traced at auction. Octavo. Original grey cloth, spine lettered in blue and front board in orange, top edge orange, fore edge uncut. With dust jacket and glassine wrapper. Housed in a black cloth chemise and black quarter morocco slipcase. A little offsetting to front free endpaper; a fine copy in the notably bright dust jacket, spine ends a little nicked and a little rubbing to extremities, and retaining two remnants of the scarce glassine jacket, surviving in two portions. Massey 103.