Shiloh.

FOOTE, Shelby (James Jones).

Item Number: 5042

New York: Dial Press, 1952.

First edition of Foote’s classic fictional re-creation of the battle of Shiloh in April 1862. Octavo, original half cloth. Inscribed by the author on the title page to fellow writer James Jones in the year of publication, “To my friend James Jones: Shelby Foote Greenville, Mississippi 15 April 1952.” In Shelby Foote: A Writer’s Life by Stuart Chapman, James Jones’s visit is mentioned: “He set out to write the article but was interrupted by James Jones, the author of From Here to Eternity, who stopped over in Greenville with ‘a milelong aluminum trailer and with three blackclad motorcyclists for outriders, like a Nazi general.’ After surviving a hangover that saddled him for several days afterwards, Foote sat down to hammer out the article.” An outstanding association copy, linking two important writers of war literature. Stamp commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh on the half title page. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with light wear. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.

Shiloh owes much to William Faulkner in the slow, elegant cadence of its storytelling. Its narrative also resembles Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage"; a similarity reinforced by the fact that Foote wrote an introduction to an edition of Crane's work some forty years later.