Books

A near-fine copy handsomely bound in dark red cloth spine stamped brightly in gold and black. Very clean and tight throughout; virtually unread. This copy has been inscribed in blue ink by I.B. Singer at the top of the title page: "Greetings and Best Wishes I.B. Singer." In a very good plus dust jacket designed by Salter with striking colored floral motif emanating from an hourglass. With light rubbing to the top and bottom of the spine ends and some light soiling to the rear panel. A tiny closed tear at the bottom edge.With the original price of $3.95 at the top of the inside front flap. A collector s copy of Singer s first novel and quite scarce, signed. Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903-1991) was a Polish-born Jewish-American novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated his own works into English with the help of editors and collaborators. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978.[12][13] A leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement, he was awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, one in Children's Literature for his memoir A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw (1970)[14] and one in Fiction for his collection A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (1974).[15]Singer became a literary contributor to The Jewish Daily Forward only after his older brother Israel died in 1944. That year, Singer published The Family Moskat in his brother's honor. His own style showed in the daring turns of his action and characters, with double adultery during the holiest of nights of Judaism, the evening of Yom Kippur (despite being printed in a Jewish family newspaper in 1945). He was nearly forced to stop writing the novel by his editor-in-chief, Abraham Cahan, but was saved by readers who wanted the story to continue.[citation needed] After this, his stories which he had published in Yiddish literary newspapers before were printed in the Forward as well. Throughout the 1940s, Singer's reputation grew.Singer believed in the power of his native language and thought that there was still a large audience, including in New York, who longed to read in Yiddish. In an interview in Encounter (February 1979), he said that although the Jews of Poland had died, "something call it spirit or whatever is still somewhere in the universe. This is a mystical kind of feeling, but I feel there is truth in it." (Wikipedia) First Edition with the statement "First Edition" at the bottom of the copyright page and no subsequent printings.

A novel following the lives of a Jewish family in Warsaw from the late 19th century to the Holocaust, examining cultural and religious identity shifts.