Wittgenstein's Mistress, David Markson. First Edition.
David Markson (1927-2010) was an American novelist. While his early works were influenced by modernist writers like Faulkner and Malcom Lowry, his later novels are, in Markson's words, "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage." In addition to novels, Markson wrote a book of poetry, literary criticism, several crime novels and an anti-western.
Wittgenstein's Mistress, published in 1988, is widely considered to be Markson's masterpiece. The original manuscript was rejected 54 times before finding a publisher and, upon publication, was met with critical acclaim. David Foster Wallace described it as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country." It's a highly stylized, experimental novel, made up of mainly first person statements of a woman who believes herself to be the last person on earth. It's a fascinating work, pondering deep philosophical questions and dealing with recurrent themes and cultural icons, ranging from Zeno to Beethoven to Wittgenstein. This is the scarce first printing:
