Item #902108 The Public Burning. Robert Coover.
The Public Burning
The Public Burning
The Public Burning

The Public Burning

New York: The Viking Press, 1977.
First Edition. Hardcover.

Review copy with review slip and glossy promotional photograph of the author by Lynn Sweigart laid in

The first major work of contemporary fiction to use historical figures as characters, the novel reimagines the three fateful days in 1953 that culminated with the execution of alleged communist spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Familiar characters like Vice-President Richard Nixon, Betty Crocker, Joe McCarthy, the Marx Brothers, Walter Winchell, and Uncle Sam and his nemesis The Phantom, and other contemporary celebrities and ordinary citizens converge in Times Square in June of 1953 to attend the Rosenbergs’ carnivalesque “public burning.”

Item #902108
ISBN: 067058200X

6-1/4 x 9-1/2", quarter white cloth, black paper over boards, x, 534pp, review slip and photograph laid in.

Fine in lightly rubbed dust wrapper and protective mylar. Review slip and photograph are both fine.



Price: $300.00

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