8vo. Original light blue cloth (some fading, vertical creasing to spine, slight wear to extremities, hinges loose); dust jacket (some soiling, rubbing and chipping, a few tears with old cellotape repairs verso).

FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST NOVEL. In a contemporary review in The New York Times, Tennessee Williams described The Sheltering Sky as "an allegory of the spiritual adventure of the fully conscious person into modern experience... this superior motive does not intrude in explicit form upon the story, certainly not in any form that will need to distract you from the great pleasure of being told a first-rate story of adventure by a really first-rate writer" (4 December 1949).

[With:] BOWLES, Paul. The Sheltering Sky. [New York]: New Directions, 1949. 8vo. Original tan cloth, stamped in blue and black; dust jacket (some soiling and chipping with short tears, spine and back panels nearly separated). FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.