WHERE THE STRESS FALLS: COLLECTED ESSAYS

New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 288 pages. The author's fifth and final collection of essays. One of Susan Sontag's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Susan Sontag's "Where The Stress Falls: Collected Essays". The last collection of essays published in her lifetime, a personal "summing-up" of a politically abysmal yet culturally vibrant century. Gathers forty-one of the author's best essays at the turn of the 21st century, demonstrating, for the last and most poignant time, Sontag's achievement as iconic writer/intellectual: These are definitive pieces that could only have been written by her. The book is divided into three parts: "Reading", "Seeing", and "There And Here". The latter section also includes a short play and her Sarajevo Diary, both of which appear in book form for the very first time. Individually and collectively, they illuminate Sontag's lifelong engagement with literary, philosophical, and aesthetic issues (and pleasures) as well as the problematic and unresolved evolution of her political and moral convictions. In the end, Sontag's much-misunderstood aesthetics (sometimes, even by her) is also an ethics, her permanent contribution being that aesthetics is not subservient to ethics, but is its co-equal power: Aesthetics is a form of ethics; ethics is a form of aesthetics. They are two very different philosophical quests. But they are inextricably linked and inescapably affect, refer, and relate to each other, in a way that our absolutist pundits would reject or deny. When stated as such, it sounds so inherently true. In reality, it is neither obvious nor unmistakably clear "where the stress falls", and her essays illuminate our existential struggle with nuance, subtlety, and intelligence. An absolute "must-have" title for Susan Sontag collectors. This title is a great collection. This copy comes with a uniquely composed Souvenir Material that is very prominently and beautifully signed and inscribed in black ink-pen by the author: "For Tom - Susan Sontag". It is unique because Tom included an original (and lovely) photographic print of himself. This is the only copy (with Signed Souvenir Material) of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws yet are priced as though they had collectible value. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 for "On Photography", the National Book Award in 2000 for "In America", and the Jerusalem Prize in 2001. Shimon Peres, in awarding the Jerusalem Prize, described Sontag as "one of the world's finest writers and greatest minds". One of the most influential and important writer-intellectuals of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER SUSAN SONTAG TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0374289174.