Description

Los Angeles: Pazifische Presse, 1952. 280 by 220 mm (11 by 8.75 inches). Half leather with “Lion Feuchtwanger” stamped in gilt to cover; 293 pp. In German. Number 3 of 100 copies. Signed “Lion Feuchtwanger.” Facsimile edition of the original typescript. Very good plus. Minor damage to head and foot of spine.

Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright best known for his work Jud Süß. This edition very likely published immediately prior to the Frankfurt edition that is commonly identified as the first edition. The novel is set before and during the Great French Revolution. It is the intimate story of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the exalted, visionary, often ridiculous, man and the story of his effortlessly adulterous wife. Printed in only 100 copies and “Manufactured in the U.S.A.” as required under then applicable copyright law to secure Feuchtwanger’s rights in the US.

The book was distributed by bookseller Mary S. Rosenberg of New York—although this copy number 3 was never on the market and always part of the publishing company’s archives. The book was translated and widely distributed in the United States in the following year—1953.

Provenance

Pazifische Presse archive & collection of Felix Guggenheim.

Additional information