Books

New York: Pantheon, 1962. First American edition of the Nobel Prize-winning author's classic first novel. Octavo, bound in full black morocco, gilt titles to the spine, gilt ruled to the front and rear panels, raised bands, top edge gilt. Signed by Gunter Grass on the title page. Translated by Ralph Manheim. In fine condition. "When Günter Grass published "The Tin Drum" in 1959 it was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction. Within the pages of this, his first novel, Grass recreated the lost world from which his creativity sprang, Danzig, his home town, as he remembered it from the years of his infancy before the catastrophe of war. Here he comes to grips with the enormous task of reviewing contemporary history by recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget because they had once believed in them. At the same time the novel breaks the bounds of realism by…

The Tin Drum is a novel by Günter Grass, considered one of the author's masterpieces and one of the key novels of the 20th century. The novel is the first book of Grass's Danzig Trilogy, and it tells the story of Oskar Matzerath, a boy who wills himself to stop growing and communicates through his tin drum. The book is a richly imaginative tale that combines history, folklore, and political commentary, presenting a surreal account of the rise of Nazism and the horrors of World War II.