The Gift of Illusion by Richard Brown (2 results)

LeatherBound. Condition: New. LeatherBound edition. Condition: New. Reprinted from 1916 edition. Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden leaf printing on spine. Bound in genuine leather with Satin ribbon page markers and Spine with raised gilt bands. A perfect gift for your loved ones. NO changes have been made to the original text. This is NOT a retyped or an ocr'd reprint. Illustrations, Index, if any, are included in black and white. Each page is checked manually before printing. As this print on demand book is reprinted from a very old book, there could be some missing or flawed pages, but we always try to make the book as complete as possible. Fold-outs, if any, are not part of the book. If the original book was published in multiple volumes then this reprint is of only one volume, not the whole set. Sewing binding for longer life, where the book block is actually sewn (smythe sewn/section sewn) with thread before binding which results in a more durable type of binding. Pages: 64 Volume No. 9 Language: English.

A haunting gift presented by Capote to Perry Smith, the death-row inmate whose crime was the basis for In Cold Blood (1966). Capote has inscribed the front free endpaper, "For Perry, from Truman, December 1963". Smith has added his ownership inscription on the front pastedown, "Perry E. Smith, 14747, Death Row", and on the map of Kansas (p. 144), he has marked the location of the murder in black ink. This book was approved by the warden as a gift on 12 December 1963, evidenced by the typescript receipt pasted onto the verso of the half-title. Smith has signed this with his surname and prisoner number, and has additionally signed two other pages thus, always located "Death Row". In addition to marking the location of the murder, Smith has marked a number of other locations on the map of Kansas relating to his crime, including Emporia, where he and Hickock bought rubber gloves and rope, and Great Bend, where they purchased adhesive tape to mask their victims' mouths. Loosely inserted into the atlas is a variety of ephemera collected by Smith, primarily clippings of stories from National Geographic, demonstrating his continued impulse to educate himself about a world he would never see. Also included are various art supplies gifted by Capote to Smith, to divert him during his numbered days on death row. In Cold Blood is one of the most influential "true crime" novels ever written. On 15 November 1959, a family of four (Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon Clutter) were murdered in their home in Holcomb, Kansas. Capote read a New York Times article on the murder and swiftly set off with his childhood friend and fellow writer, Harper Lee, to cover the unfolding story. While Capote and Lee were in town, the murderers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock were caught, and Capote saw the potential for a novel, later remarking "murder was a theme not likely to darken and yellow with time" (quoted by Keefe). Capote used his standing and connections to help the two incarcerated men receive legal aid, which prolonged their sentence and the time he had to ingratiate himself as a sympathetic friend. He first set eyes on Smith in late December 1959, and Harper Lee remarked that it was "the beginning of a great love affair" (quoted by Gumbel). While he befriended both Smith and Hickcok, it was in Smith that he saw a twisted vision of himself. They were strikingly physically alike, and both were the products of deprived early childhoods: "it would have been easy for Truman to look into Perry Smith's black eyes and think he was looking at his darker twin" (Kashner). Capote and Smith's relationship was strange and intense. Smith was by all accounts charming, an autodidact musician who sketched his cellmates and read voraciously. In In Cold Blood, Capote described Smith's face as "a changeling's face mirror-guided experiments had taught him how to ring the changes, how to look now ominous, now impish, now soulful; a tilt of the head, a twist of the lips, and the corrupt gypsy became the gentle romantic". Smith confided in Capote tales from his childhood, the abuse he suffered, and his desperate desire and inability to rise above the circumstances of his birth. "By 1966 it was close to received wisdom that Capote had manipulated his subjects, flattering them, plying them with gifts and creating a dependency that he exploited to extract every last memory of their crime and its aftermath" (Gumbel). Although Capote undoubtedly used his intimacy with Smith for his own ends, he did not escape the relationship unscathed. He cared for Smith. "Perry wasn't an evil person," he said shortly after his book was published. "If he'd had any chance in life, things would have been different. But every illusion he'd ever had, well, they all evaporated. You can't go through life without ever getting anything you want, ever" (quoted by Gumbel). The execution of Perry Smith on 14 April 1965 was a cataclysmic event for Capote and marked the beginning of his downward spiral. After witnessing the hanging, Capote increasingly isolated himself. "It was a terrible experience and I will never get over it," he wrote to one of Perry's few friends. Driving home from the execution, Capote had to pull the car over to the side of the road, where he wept for two hours. Andrew Gumbel, "Capote: Written in Blood", The Independent, 5 February 2006; Sam Kashner, "Capote's Swan Dive", Vanity Fair, 15 November 2012; Patrick Radden Keefe, "Capote's Co-Conspirators", New Yorker, 22 March 2013. Folio. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt and relief. With three catalogues for art supplies, each with Smith's ownership inscription, maps of the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia, three clippings of an advertisement for the present atlas, a partial image of a globe, and 12 newspaper clippings. All housed in a custom brown cloth box. Colour illustrations throughout. Edges rubbed, a few marks to rear cover, slight abrasions to gilt on front cover, lightly shaken, a few marks to contents: a very good copy.