Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

From the first edition dustjacket:

"It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching - yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it."

To see photos of the first edition of Invisible Man click here.

Invisible Man won the National Book Award. To see photos of other National Book Award first edition books click here.

The Valley of the Dolls

Jacqueline Susann was born on August 20, 1918 in Philadelphia. Her mother was a school teacher and her father, Robert Susann, was a portrait painter. At age 16 she left Philadelphia for New York (against objections by her family) where she appeared in many Broadway plays. She later turned to television acting where she "stabbed, strangled, and shot on every major dramatic show on the airwaves."

Valley of the Dolls was Susann's first novel. To quote the first edition dust jacket, it is the "story of three gifted women, of their climb to fame and wealth, and of the soul-crushing price they pay for their precarious place on the mountain peak. Here are their worlds, behind the lights of Broadway, on the movie lots of Hollywood and Europe, in the gay nightlife of New York and Paris. Here too, is the horrible nightworld of booze and pills – pep pills, sleeping pills, red pills, blue pills, pills to chase the world away and pills to help one clutch at sanity – the lethal 'dolls' of the glittering people. They are magic tickets to peace and oblivion… and even death… in the VALLEY OF THE DOLLS."

Click here to see the photos of the first edition of The Valley of the Dolls