The Graduate: A Novel of Today’s Youth, Unlike Any You Have Read.

WEBB, Charles. [William Daniels; Katharine Ross; Larry Truman].

Item Number: 145097

New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1963.

First edition of the “brilliant… sardonic, ludicrously funny” (The New York Times) story of an aimless college graduate in 1960s America that inspired of the iconic 1967 film starring Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, and Katharine Ross. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, signed on the half-title page by Charles Webb, Larry Truman (the film’s Oscar-nominated producer), William Daniels (the father of Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock), and Katharine Ross (Elaine Robinson). Additionally inscribed on the front free endpaper by Larry Truman, “With all good wishes Larry Truman.” Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Milton Glaser. A unique example.

When Benjamin Braddock graduates from a small eastern college and comes home to his parents’ house, everyone wants to know what he’s going to do with his life. Benjamin has no idea. Feeling empty, embittered, and adrift, he falls haplessly into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the seductive wife of his father’s business partner. But then he falls in love with a woman closer to his own age: Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. A scathingly entertaining tale of idealism and materialism, corruption and conformity, The Graduate captures with hilarity and insight the alienation of youth and the disillusionment of an era. It is the basis for the 1967 Mike Nichols film, starring Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross and Anne Bancroft.