ARGUABLY: ESSAYS BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

New York City, NY: Twelve/Hachette Book Group, 2011. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Twelve/Hachette Book Group, 2011. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 795 pages. Massive retrospective collection of essays. The summing-up of Christopher Hitchens' stupendous achievement as an essayist and polemicist. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Christopher Hitchens' "Arguably". For the sake of argument - and his bequest to posterity. "For nearly four decades, Hitchens has been telling us, in pitch-perfect prose, what we confront when we grapple with first principles - the principles of reason, tolerance, and skepticism that define and inform the foundations of our civilization - principles that, to endure, must be defended anew by every generation. His knowledge is formidable, an encyclopedic treasure, and yet one has the feeling, reading him, of hearing a person thinking out loud, following the inexorable logic of his thought, wherever it might lead, unafraid to expose fraudulence, denounce injustice, and excoriate hypocrisy. Readers, admirers and detractors alike, have learned to read Hitchens with something approaching awe at the oxygen in every sentence, the enviable wit, and his readiness - even eagerness - to fight a foe. What emerges from this indispensable volume is an intellectual self-portrait" (Publisher's blurb) . As such, he never did reconcile with America's own greatest literary wit, Gore Vidal, who (perhaps prematurely) anointed him as his successor, which Hitchens accepted and then repudiated. Premature because Hitchens, who died in 2011, pre-deceased "elder statesman" Vidal, who died in 2012. An absolute "must-have" title for Christopher Hitchens collectors. This title is a great collection. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are in innumerable subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. One of the greatest writer/intellectuals of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AND GORE VIDAL TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1455502774.