BELLOW, SAUL (1915 - 2005)
The Dean's December

The Alison Press / Martin Secker & Warburg, London. United Kingdom. 1982. First English edition. Red cloth binding with gilt lettering on spine. With grey dustjacket with black and red titles.

312 pp. 14,5 x 22,25 x 2,75 cm. 492 gr. ISBN-10 0436039524. First UK hardback copy unclipped. With publisher's price sticker over original price. Photograph of author by Jill Krementz.

Set both in Chicago and Bucharest, the novel features an academic, Albert Corde, who travels to Bucharest with his Romanian-born wife upon her mother's death, providing Corde with the opportunity to see first-hand the workings of a totalitarian regime and how life is lived in an Eastern-Bloc country. To the familiar Bellow magic and mastery The Dean's December adds a sense of urgency, of topicality, and an almost thriller-like tension. Furthermore, the wit, the erudition, the unique and extraordinary use of language is but a delight to admirers of Herzog and Humboldt's Gift. Saul Bellow is the only author to have received three National Book Awards for Fiction (The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and Mr. Sammler's Planet), in addition to both the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (Humboldt's Gift) and the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work". The Sunday Times praised these achievements when it revered "Bellow's oeuvre [as] both timeless and ruthlessly contemporary." A great copy of the world first printing first edition UK hardback. A superb novel with two cities vividly brought to life - Chicago and Bucharest. Humour and pathos are almost the calling card from this great Nobel Laureate.

Little stamp and previous owner's name and date on titlepage. Dustjacket slightly discolored. Near fine dustjacket. Book as new.

Booknumber: 10177