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Membership(s): IOBA, ESA, CALIBA
Holm, Sven. TERMUSH.
$600.00
London: Faber & Faber, (1969)
First printing. The very rare first English language edition of this disturbing and powerful novella – recently rediscovered and re-issued in softcover.
As Ella Griffiths, Faber’s classics editor, noted “It’s a superb novella, and I was staggered that a dystopia of such crystalline power had been buried in the English-speaking world for over half a century. In its focus on the shattering existential consequences of catastrophe with its hauntingly neutral tone and narratorial anonymity Termush feels like a timeless parable of human alienation in a society corrupted by materialism (‘we bought the commodity called survival’).”
Written shortly after the Cuban crisis, it has “uncanny parallels with our post-pandemic world, [it] captures the aura of our dazed societies, transmitting the uneasy aftermath and psychic fallout of a cataclysmic global event – whether refracting Cold War paranoia or the geopolitical consequences of lockdowns and quarantines.”
Termush is the name of the luxury hotel resort on the Atlantic coast where wealthy guests – preppers, in a sense – reserved rooms long before a nuclear disaster. They bask in radiation shelters, eating lavish meals to a soundtrack of ambient music, embarking on tourist day trips. But outside their insular ecosystem is a post-apocalyptic world, with radioactive dust falling on the sculpture park and dead birds littering the gardens. And as their reconnaissance party scouts the area, it becomes clear that their haven cannot survive for long. Disruptive guests are sedated; initial generosity towards strangers and refugees ceases as fears of contamination and limited resources grow. Translated from the Danish by Sylvia Clayton. 110 pp.
Very near fine in red cloth with gilt lettering on the spine in a near fine dustjacket with light toning. ,
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Lewis’s prescient anti-fascist novel signed
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$650.00Garden City (N.Y.): The Sun Dial Press, dated 1935. While Sun Dial, a reprint publisher, doesn’t include printing history, this is likely from the same year as the true first. Signed by Lewis to the front free end paper below his pasted in photo. Blue cloth with gilt spine lettering. A well preserved copy of this inexpensively produced book, a solid very good with only a few minor defects — pages uniformly age toned, boards a little marked, photo pasted to front free end paper. Dust wrapper is also very good, 1” tear bottom rear flap, light chipping to spine extremities, some weakness to the folds, corners clipped, but retains its original bright gold color.
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$200.00New York: Covici Friede, 1934. First edition, a photoplay edition. Inscribed “from Zanuck’s undertaker” by Fowler to Richard Watts, motion picture critic for the New York Herald. Signed and dated in the month prior to the movie’s release. Producer and co-founder of 20th Century Fox movie studio, Darryl Zanuck was known for his hands-on approach, often overseeing scripts, ordering cuts, and working closely with writers. A contemporary article in The New Yorker reported that while writing the script for “The Great Barnum,” Fowler had a two-hour conversation on Barnum with Zanuck. “I can’t remember a word of this,” Fowler complained, so Zanuck used his dictaphone to turn the conversation into a 30,000-word draft by the next morning. From the dust wrapper: The Mighty Barnum “is the first full-length scenario for an actual talking picture production to be published in book form”. According to Time Magazine, “[t]he idea is credited to Publisher Pascal Covici of Covici, Friede. Visiting Hollywood last summer he watched the filming of The Mighty Barnum with his good friend, Author Gene Fowler. Publisher Covici secured rights to print the script of The Mighty Barnum in book form. The producers. Twentieth Century Pictures, Inc., asked nothing but the publicity from simultaneous release of book and film. Author Fowler and Co-Author Bess Meredyth were to split 15% of the gross sales. Not to be confused with drug-store novelized editions of cinemas. The Mighty Barnum is the first film script published and sold as a book. Price: $2.00. It is complete with stage directions, camera & sound details, author’s notes.” Corners scuffed, slight fraying to top spine, otherwise a solid very good copy retaining the brightness of its original orange color and green titles. Very good dust wrapper edges a little rubbed, spine toned, corners clipped but $2.00 price intact.
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