City of Night (1963), inscribed

• Published: Grove Press, New York, 1963
• Edition: First edition, first printing; first-state dust jacket
• Binding: Cloth, dust jacket with Tony Canales author photograph
• Pages: 410 pp.
• Dimensions: 12mo
• Language: English
• Signature: Signed and inscribed on the front free endpaper to Ralph Sylvester.
• Condition: Fine in a near fine dust jacket.

Rechy's first novel, published by Grove Press in 1963, follows an unnamed young hustler from El Paso through Times Square, Pershing Square in Los Angeles, the French Quarter at Mardi Gras and San Francisco: a nocturnal America of bars, parks and rented rooms that respectable literature did not acknowledge. Sections first appeared in Evergreen Review and Big Table, where its incantatory, street-level voice drew immediate attention.

It became a bestseller in spite of reviews such as the New York Review of Books' notoriously hostile one. Rechy, who grew up Mexican American in El Paso and drew on his own life, is now recognised as a forerunner of both gay and Chicano literature, and the Doors borrowed his title for a line in L.A. Woman.

Inscribed to Ralph Sylvester, co-founder of the Los Angeles fine press Sylvester & Orphanos.