A Confederacy of Dunces
By John Kennedy Toole
 
Twentieth-Anniversary Limited Edition, number 409 of 495 copies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
 
Original quarter purple cloth on black silk-effect boards, spine lettered in gilt, light green top edge and embossed signature of the author to the upper cover. Housed in the original purple cloth slipcase, lettered in gilt to the front.
 
A fine copy, the binding remarkably sharp and the gilt lettering bright. Internally pristine, the contents remain clean and fresh throughout.
 
The original slipcase near fine, with a few mild instances of rubbing, primarily to the bottom edge as noted, but otherwise remaining firm, clean and structurally sound.
 
This commemorative limited edition was published to mark two decades since the novel’s extraordinary debut. "A Confederacy of Dunces" is the subject of one of the most famous publication stories in modern literature; after John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969, his mother, Thelma, spent years campaigning to have the manuscript read, eventually enlisting the help of novelist Walker Percy.
 
The book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction posthumously in 1981. Centred on the iconic, eccentric, and fiercely anti-modern Ignatius J. Reilly, the novel has become a cult classic and the definitive literary representation of New Orleans. Its influence on American comedy and the "picaresque" tradition remains profound, securing its place as a highlight of late twentieth-century fiction.