A Boy's Own Story

Title: A Boy's Own Story

Author: White, Edmund

Publication: New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1982.

Description: Semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel about a gay teenage boy in the 1950s Midwestern United States, the first book in a trilogy by Edmund White. First hardcover edition, first printing with full number line. Signed by the author in black ink on the half-title. Bound in quarter white cloth with red paper over boards and brown lettering on the spine. In original pictorial dust jacket with price of $13.95. 8.5 x 5.5 inches; [10], 217, [1] pages. Light bumping to one corner of the binding, soiling on pages 3-4, dust jacket with a few closed tears, minor chipping, and remnants of a sticker. Very Good in a Very Good dust jacket. A nice copy of an LGBTQ+ classic.

In the preface to a 2023 graphic novel version of the book, White recalls that his regular publisher had rejected the manuscript as "disappointingly realistic." He continues, "I knew that most gay fiction was porn or camp and as someone who'd lived through the Stonewall Uprising and was a convinced gay liberationist, I wanted to write a 'literary' coming-of-age story." White was also known for co-founding the Gay Men's Health Crisis and authoring "The Joy of Gay Sex" (1977, with Charles Silverstein) and "States of Desire: Travels Through Gay America" (1980). He recently passed away at the age of 85.