Franklin Library leather edition of James Dickey's "Deliverance," a Limited edition, Illustrated by Barron Storey, one of the SIGNED 60 series, personally signed by JAMES DICKEY, published in 1981.  Bound in red leather, the book has matching moire silk end leaves, acid-free paper, hubbed spine, gold gilt on three edges---in near Fine condition.  James Dickey, who lived from 1923-1977, served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II; he later graduated from VANDERBILT University with a BA and MA.  Dickey was appointed Poet Laureate of the U.S. in 1966. "Deliverance," first published in 1970, was adapted as a 1972 film. Narrated in the first person by Ed Gentry, a graphic artist and one of the four main characters, the novel opens with him and three friends, all middle-aged men who live in a large city in Georgia, planning a weekend canoe trip down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the northwest Georgia wilderness. It's a last chance to travel on this wild river, which is scheduled to be dammed to create a reservoir and generate hydropower. Besides Ed, the protagonists are insurance salesman Bobby Trippe, soft drink executive Drew Ballinger, and landlord Lewis Medlock, a physically fit outdoorsman who has promoted the canoe trip. The men drive into the mountains with two canoes. At a gas station in a mountain hamlet, Drew sees a local albino boy playing a banjo. He gets out his own guitar and plays a duet with Lonnie, who appears to be intellectually disabled, maybe inbred, but with great musical skills. The men arrange with local mechanics, the Griner brothers, to drive the foursome's cars to the fictitious town of Aintry, where the canoe voyage is scheduled to end two days later. The visitors put their canoes in the river and begin their journey. After they shoot some initial rapids and evening approaches, Ed reflects on the isolation into which the group has now voyaged.  Later two men, one of them carrying a shotgun, step out of the woods. After a tense conversation these men attack Ed and Bobby. The men force them a bit further into the woods, Ed is tied to a tree by his neck and cut with his own knife; then the two men order Bobby to strip from the waist down. The two men force Bobby to bend over a log, and the older man rapes him. The men then untie Ed, and the younger makes Ed kneel, about to force Ed to perform fellatio on him. Lewis, hidden in the woods, fatally shoots Bobby's assailant with an arrow as the shotgun is handed off from the younger man to the older. Ed snatches the gun from the shot man after he falls, while the other flees into the woods. The city men argue about what to do. The men bury the body and return to their canoes. Some time later, the men reach Aintry, where they explain that they suffered a canoeing accident at a falls upriver and that their friend Drew must have drowned. Ed returns to city life, feeling changed by the violent events and memories of the river.  He occasionally sees Bobby but the latter moves to Hawaii. Ed and his wife later buy a cabin on another "dammed lake," and Lewis buys a neighboring cottage. Lewis is marked by a limp but the two city men return outwardly to their lives. In 1998, the editors of the Modern Library selected "Deliverance" as #42 on their list of the 100 best 20th-Century noels and in 2005, the novel was included on Time Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. 276 pages.  I offer combined shipping.