signed-firsts

Toward the End of Time (1997) Signed First Edition Reference

Approx. 2 min read · 4 May 2026

Toward the End of Time (1997) is set in a near-future Massachusetts in the aftermath of a nuclear war between the United States and China. The narrator, Ben Turnbull, is a retired financial advisor whose journal entries over the course of a year combine observations of the post-war landscape with meditations on aging, sexuality, quantum physics, and mortality. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, the novel mixes realism with science-fictional elements and was one of Updike’s most critically challenged works — a notorious negative review by David Foster Wallace in The New York Observer became nearly as famous as the novel itself.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York Publication date: 1997 Format: Hardcover, 334 pages First printing indicator: “First Edition” on the copyright page

Signed Copy Values

Flat-signed: $75–$200
Inscribed: $150–$400

Bottom-tier pricing. The Wallace review cast a long shadow over the novel’s reception, and collector interest has remained minimal.

The Wallace Review

David Foster Wallace’s excoriating review — published in the New York Observer under the headline “John Updike, Champion Literary Phallocrat, Drops One” — became a landmark in late-twentieth-century literary criticism and is now probably more widely read than the novel itself. The review’s central argument — that Updike’s narcissistic male narrators had become solipsistic to the point of artistic failure — crystallized a generational critique that had been building for years. For collectors interested in literary controversy, a signed Toward the End of Time paired with a copy of the Wallace review creates a provocative display.

Market Notes

Among the cheapest signed Updike novels. The literary-historical interest (the Wallace review, the speculative fiction experiment) gives it more intellectual significance than its market price suggests.