Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, signed by the author.

WARREN, Robert Penn (1905–1989). All the King’s Men. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.

Illustrated edition, issued for the thirty-fifth anniversary of Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, with a new introduction by the author and illustrations by Warren Chappell. Signed by Robert Penn Warren on the illustrated front endpaper.

Octavo (approximately 240 mm). xx, 546 pages. Illustrated throughout by Warren Chappell. Publisher’s black and green cloth, upper board decorated and lettered in gilt and black, spine lettered in gilt; red top edge; illustrated endpapers. In the original publisher’s decorative paper-covered slipcase. Issued without a dust jacket. The bibliographical description of the edition confirms the pagination and Chappell illustrations, while an ABAA copy confirms the original slipcase and that the edition was issued without a jacket.

First published in 1946, All the King’s Men won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became Warren’s defining novel. Its story of Willie Stark, an idealistic lawyer transformed into a formidable Southern governor, drew upon the political world of Depression-era Louisiana and the career of Huey P. Long.

Thirty-five years later, Warren returned to the novel for this edition with a newly written introduction. Warren Chappell, one of the important American book designers and illustrators of the twentieth century, supplied the illustrations and visual treatment.

This copy is signed in full by Robert Penn Warren on the front endpaper and retains its original slipcase. The book itself is very good to near fine, clean and firmly bound, with the gilt remaining bright. The slipcase shows toning and shelf wear, with rubbing and some loss along the lower edge and extremities.