Bibliographical Description
86.03.W019: Ford – The Sportswriter
The | Sportswriter | [ornamental rule 4.2 cm] | Richard Ford | VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES | VINTAGE BOOKS • A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE • NEW YORK
A Vintage Original, March 1986
Second printing, April 1986; third printing, May 1986; fourth printing August 1986.
192 leaves, pp. [6] 1–3 4-23 24 25-47 48 49-73 74 75-112 113 114-141 142 143-164 165 166-179 180 181-202 203 204-238 239 240-297 298 299-311 312 313-346 347 348-365 366 367-375 [3]
Contents: π1a blurbs and author photo, π1b “ALSO BY RICHARD FORD”, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedication, π3b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-375 The Sportswriter, χ1b about the author, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list.
Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Kristina Ford.
Copyright: ©1986. ISBN: 0-394-74325-3. Price: $6.95. The Sportswriter was first published by Vintage Contemporaries, 1986.
Copies: JDP 1.1 (presumed), JDP 1.4
Blurbs, First Edition, First Printing
- (front cover) A book full of life, and a grand achievement. – Frederick Exley
- The sportswriter is Frank Bascombe, aged 38, who lives alone in a large Tudor house in suburban New Jersey and goes out into the world with his hopes ascendant (as a way of avoiding terrible, searing regret). In this particular Easter week, he is swept into an elation and a bereavement that neither he nor the reader will ever forget. “It is one thing to write sports,” he says, “but another thing entirely to live a life.”
- “The sport of this remarkable novel,” as Frederick Exley explains in his advance comment, “is the one all of us play—win or lose at—every day. Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter is funny and affecting in the powerful way that moves your heart.” – Frederick Exley
- “Richard Ford is a masterful writer,” writes Raymond Carver, and with The Sportswriter Mr. Ford has written a masterful novel that fulfills utterly Walter Clemons’ prediction that “here is a career that could turn out to be extraordinary – Raymond Carver, Newsweek
- Richard Ford’s sportswriter is a bird rare in life and nearly extinct in fiction—a decent man. – Tobias Wolff
Blurbs, First Edition, Fourth Printing
- (front cover) This is a stunning novel. – Walker Percy
- A book of life, full of life, and a grand achievement. The sport of this remarkable novel is the one all of us play—and win or lose at—every day. – Frederick Exley
- A compelling novel about a survivor, shellshocked by life, who just happens to be a sportswriter the way Willy Loman just happened to be a salesman….Ford is writing about modern uncommitted man, lashing himself to the railing of mundane daily life, trying to get through the storm. – George Vecsey, The New York Times
- With its small gallery of sharply drawn characters, its deep vision of the way we live, its forceful and often soaring, sometimes downright moving way of speech, and its reverberating, redemptive plot, Ford’s novel overcomes an excess of virtues. It transcends them, and becomes much more than an ordinary success….Ford does this with a deftness and intensity that we find in few books by writers of our generation. – Alan Cheuse, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner
- An appreciation of the mystery of things as they are. – Time
- One of the finest writers of his generation…he writes the very best that is within him. – Norman Maclean
- His finest book to date, a book that can stand alongside such works as Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer and Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. – Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times