Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - 1985

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. CS4 - A first edition (complete numberline with incorrect word printed, "none" instead "done", on page 621, line 16, 3rd word) hardcover book SIGNED by Larry McMurtry on the front free endpaper in good condition in very good original dust jacket ($18.95 stated on the front flap) that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling, chipping, crease, a few tiny tears and soiled patches on the edges and corners, some scattered scratches, rubbing, and foxing, tanning, and light shelf wear. Book lightly bowed, cupping, fading, wrinkling and rubbing on the spine and gap between spine cover and inside pages, some bumped corners, wrinkling on the cover spine edges, tear with board showing on the cover back bottom left corner edge, patch stain on the right side page edges, some scattered light stains on the cover and page edges with some light scuffing, small patch wrinkling with tiny tear on the top of pages 195-200, scattered light water soiled patches on pages 501-504, light tanning and shelf wear. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, the author of Terms of Endearment, is his long-awaited masterpiece, the major novel at last of the American West as it really was. A love story, an adventure, an American epic, Lonesome Dove embraces all the West - legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers - in a novel that recreates the central American experience, the most enduring of our national myths. Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana - and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream - the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners and friends who have shared hardship and danger together without ever quite understanding (or wanting to understand) each other's deepest emotions. Gus is the romantic, a reluctant rancher who has a way with women and the sense to leave well enough alone. Call is a driven, demanding man, a natural authority figure with no patience for weaknesses, and not many of his own. He is obsessed with the dream of creating his own empire, and with the need to conceal a secret sorrow of his own. The two men could hardly be more different, but both are tough, redoubtable fighters who have learned to count on each other, if nothing else. Call's dream not only drags Gus along in its wake, but draws in a vast cast of characters: *Lorena, the whore with the proverbial heart of gold, whom Gus (and almost everyone else) loves, and who survives one of the most terrifying experiences any woman could have...; *Elmira, the restless, reluctant wife of a small-time Arkansas sheriff, who runs away from the security of marriage to become part of the great Western adventure...; *Blue Duck, the sinister Indian renegade, one of the most frightening villains in American fiction, whose steely capacity for cruelty affects the lives of everyone in the book...; *Newt, the young cowboy for whom the long and dangerous journey from Texas to Montana is in fact a search for his own identity...; *Jake, the dashing, womanizing ex-Ranger, a comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, whose weakness leads him to an unexpected fate...; *July Johnson, husband of Elmira, whose love for her draws him out of his secure life into the wilderness, and turns him into a kind of hero... Lonesome Dove sweeps from the Rio Grande (where Gus and Call acquire the cattle for their long drive by raiding the Mexicans) to the Montana highlands (where they find themselves besieged by the last, defiant remnants of an older West). It is an epic of love, heroism, loyalty, honor, and betrayal - faultlessly written, unfailingly dramatic. Lonesome Dove is the novel about the West for which American literature - and the American reader - has long been waiting. 9.5"x6.5", 843 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Larry McMurtry (Larry Jeff McMurtry) is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller, and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the Old West or in contemporary Texas. His novels include Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films earning a total of 26 Oscar nominations (10 wins). His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Lonesome Dove, was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and cowriter Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hardcover. Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.