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James Jones Autograph

(1921-1977)

Interested in other author autographs or signatures? Go here.

An interesting story - one of our visitors, Dennis Bridwell, sent this to us:
 
"Sir,

I was just looking through your site and found James Jones signature. A little story that you may find interesting, I was a police officer in Robinson Illinois in the 70s and was at a yard sale. There I found an autographed copy, 1st edition of "From Here To Eternity". I was young and dumb then, now I am just older and dumb, but I didn't know at the time that James Jones was from Robinson and had lived next door to this house where the yard sale was when he sold the rights to the book. It wasn't until I matured that I researched this and found out that I had probably passed up the buy of a lifetime. I think they wanted $.25 for the book, it was signed "To Mac & Helen, James Jones" and I think that the owners had died and the heirs were just trying to make some quick cash. This might be boring to you but it is one of my favorite "The one that got away" stories.

Take care, Dennis Bridwell"

From Here to Eternity by James Jones (Author), James Jones
Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941. Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler. But when he refuses to join the company's boxing team, he gets "the treatment" that may break him or kill him. First Sgt. Milton Anthony Warden knows how to soldier better than almost anyone, yet he's risking his career to have an affair with the commanding officer's wife. Both Warden and Prewitt are bound by a common bond: the Army is their heart and blood . . .and, possibly, their death.


In this magnificent but brutal classic of a soldier's life, James Jones portrays the courage, violence and passions of men and women who live by unspoken codes and with unutterable despair. . .in the most important American novel to come out of World War II, a masterpiece that captures as no ther the honor and savagery of men.

The Thin Red Line by James Jones (Author)
Amazon.com - "When compared to the fact that he might very well be dead by this time tomorrow, whether he was courageous or not today was pointless, empty. When compared to the fact that he might be dead tomorrow, everything was pointless. Life was pointless. Whether he looked at a tree or not was pointless. It just didn't make any difference. It was pointless to the tree, it was pointless to every man in his outfit, pointless to everybody in the whole world. Who cared? It was not pointless only to him; and when he was dead, when he ceased to exist, it would be pointless to him too. More important: Not only would it be pointless, it would have been pointless, all along."

Such is the ultimate significance of war in The Thin Red Line (1962), James Jones's fictional account of the battle between American and Japanese troops on the island of Guadalcanal. The narrative shifts effortlessly among multiple viewpoints within C-for-Charlie Company, from commanding officer Capt. James Stein, his psychotic first sergeant Eddie Welsh, and the young privates they send into battle. The descriptions of combat conditions--and the mental states it induces--are unflinchingly realistic, including the dialog (in which a certain word Norman Mailer rendered as "fug" 15 years earlier in The Naked and the Dead appears properly spelled on numerous occasions). This is more than a classic of combat fiction; it is one of the most significant explorations of male identity in American literature, establishing Jones as a novelist of the caliber of Herman Melville and Stephen Crane. 

Whistle by James Jones (Author)
The crowning novel of James Jones's trilogy brings to life the men who fought and died in the war and the wounded who survived, living to carry the madness home.