Unsigned first edition book: Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey. First edition, first printing. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Hardcover with dust jacket, 5.75 x 8.5, 269 pages. Book condition: VG+/VG, with a few cleanly repaired tears to the jacket. Abbey's autobiographical account of his time as a ranger at Arches National Park is considered a landmark of modern environmental writing. Now one of his most famous and best-selling works, it was originally published in an edition of just 5,000.