Porter, Katharine Anne (1890–1980)

A Christmas Story [Author SIGNED - Drawings by Ben Shahn (1898–1969)]

New York: Delacorte Press, 1967. Limited Edition. Hardcover in a slipcase. The design and production place this squarely within the tradition of American literary livre d’artiste projects of the postwar period, pairing a canonical author with a major modern artist in a deliberately limited format.

Octavo, green cloth in matching slipcase. Limited to 500 numbered copies, this being no. 306 and signed by Katherine Anne Porter on the limitation page (Ben Shahn’s name in facsimile). Designed by Ben Shahn, with a special frontispiece drawing and additional illustrations throughout.

Condition: The bindings are tight and square. Text is clean; light, even age-toning. Slipcase shows minimal handling. Signed limitation page present and complete.

Originally published in Mademoiselle, A Christmas Story is a reflective, non-sentimental meditation on belief, innocence, and moral inheritance, written late in Porter’s career and widely regarded as one of her most affecting shorter works. Shahn’s linear, symbolic drawings—angels, floral fields, architectural motifs—complement the text with restraint and gravity, aligning the book with mid-century fine-press sensibilities rather than commercial illustration.

Historical Context:
Katharine Anne Porter is a central figure of American modernism, best known for Ship of Fools and her finely wrought short fiction. This late work reflects her long-standing preoccupation with moral clarity and mythic structures.

Ben Shahn, a leading figure in American social realism, brings a spare, emblematic visual language that elevates the book beyond holiday literature into the realm of serious artistic collaboration

Subjects: Katharine Anne Porter, Ben Shahn, Signed Limited Editions, Mid-Century American Book Design, Literary Illustration, Christmas Literature, American Modernist Prose, Livre d’Artiste Tradition, American Literature, Modernism, Fine Press, Artist-Illustrated Books

Item #21338

Price: $450.00