Franklin Library leather edition of John Updike's "Toward the End of Time," a Limited edition, Frontispiece portrait one of the SIGNED FIRST EDITION series, Personally signed by JOHN UPDIKE, published in 1998. Bound in tan leather, the book has decorative paper end leaves, a satin book marker, symth-sewn binding, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges---in Near FINE condition---except for 'minor smudge' on inside flyleaf---mentioned for accuracy. Set in New England, "Toward the End of Time" portrays a world in which the Chinese and the Americans have attacked one another with nuclear weapons. The aftermath is shown through retired investment advisor Ben Turnbull's journal. Though the dollar and the central government are gone, life in Boston and the surrounding areas goes on thanks to FedEx and other less reputable entrepreneurs. The book is divided into five parts: The Deer. The Dollhouse. The Deal. The Deaths. The Dahlia. In "The Deer," Ben expresses his uneasiness about his second wife, Gloria's, obsession with killing the deer who is ravaging her picture-perfect garden. Clearly unhappy with Gloria, Ben begins an affair with a prostitute named Deirdre. In The Dollhouse Ben believes he has slid into an alternate universe when Gloria disappears and Deirdre takes her place. Ben has the vague impression he may have shot and killed Gloria. Spin and Phil, young thugs who collect protection money from Ben, clash with Deirdre, who takes a more and more authoritative role in the house. In The Deal, Deirdre leaves Ben for Phil, and Gloria returns. Ben is relieved that he did not shoot Gloria, and admits that the house and garden flourish under her influence. Spin is killed by a group of younger children who set up house in the woods behind Ben's house and supplant Spin and Phil in the collection business. Ben helps them establish local legitimacy in exchange for commissions on their earnings and sexual favors from their young female companion, Doreen. In The Deaths Ben discovers he has prostate cancer. During his long hospital stay, Gloria hires FedEx — for whom Phil is now working — to get rid of the residents of the makeshift house. Creatures called Metallobioforms designed to clear away large tracts of land for human exploitation are used to raze the house. Ben sees evidence that they also devoured and killed the young people. He is left as impotent to protest Gloria's cruelty.  In The Dahalia, Gloria's hired deer hunter shoots and kills the young doe who has been nibbling their garden. Ben cannot participate in Gloria's triumph or the deer hunter's communion with nature.  self-indulgent that it's hard to believe the author let it be published in this kind of shape. Updike was called: "just a penis with a thesaurus." Margaret Atwood praises Updike's "brilliant metaphors" and describes the central character Ben Turnbull in his semi-idyllic, upper class rural home as "a Thoreau run through the meat grinder of the 20th century."  334 pages. I offer Combined shipping.