Highsmith, Patricia

The Talented Mr. Ripley.  New York: Coward-McCann, 1955



In 8s (8 x 5  3/8  in.; 203 x 137 mm).  Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in green; slight wear at foot of spine.  Original dust jacket; minimal wear at edges with small paper loss at foot of spine.  Green buckram folding-case, black morocco gilt spine label.

See Wilson, Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith (2003), pp. 186–210

First edition.  The first Ripley novel and Highsmith's greatest book, inscribed on the front free endpaper, "6. 7. 1957.  To Barbara, With thanks.  My favorite book, and with hopes of writing better ones.  And with memories of Mexico (x), and expectations of Europe, Pat Highsmith." 

In Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith, Andrew Wilson writes, "As spring warmed the city, Highsmith's spirits received a well-needed boost by the start of a new relationship with a thirty-four-year-old female copywriter who cannot be named.  By May of 1956, Highsmith had started dedicating poems to her and then in June, after a trial period of living together in New York, they moved to the countryside.  With them came a new chrome and black Ford convertible, a boxer dog and a pair of Siamese cats."  At the beginning of 1957, the pair made a two-month long visit to Mexico, which served as the setting for her novel A Game for the Living, which was published in 1958.  (Although the copywriter is not named in Wilson's book, her full signature is present above Highsmith's inscription in the Ripley book offered here.)

As for The Talented Mr. Ripley itself, it remains Highsmith's most celebrated and widely read book.  After its publication, it received numerous literary awards including the Edgar Allan Poe Scroll, presented by the Mystery Writers of America in April 1956, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 1958.  It inspired a number of different film treatments, with actors as divers as Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, and Matt Damon playing Ripley.  The amoral Tom Ripley was to remain Highsmith's favorite of all her fictional creations and the one she most closely identified with.  She once remarked of this novel, "I often had the feeling that Ripley was writing it and I was merely typing."