Before Adam
New York: Published for the Review of Reviews Company by the Macmillan Company, 1913.
Authorized Edition, fourth printing. Presentation copy signed by Jack London on the front free endpaper and inscribed to his physician Dr. A.R. Goodman, the latter's bookplate to front pastedown: "Dear Doctor Goodman: – You are billed to pull our latch string, share our blankets, & straddle our horses, here in the Valley of the Moon ---- don't forget, that is a date. July 10, 1914."
[xii], 242 pp. Bound in publisher's bead-grain blue cloth stamped in blind and lettered in gilt, top edge gilt. Near Fine with light rubbing to extremities; hinges just starting. Cloth and gilt bright.
A crisp inscribed copy of an early reprint of Jack London’s prehistoric adventure novel. The Review of Reviews was a reform magazine, sister to the progressive British periodical of the same name, and a natural choice to publish affordable editions of books by the socialist champion. That champion took a warm interest in the Mexican Revolution and traveled to Mexico in 1914 as a war correspondent for Collier’s. Charmian London wrote in her 1921 biography of her husband that he was stricken with dysentery in Vera Cruz and was treated by Dr. Goodman, the resident American physician.
This book was one of a set he presented to Goodman in gratitude. London was famously hospitable and his inscription extends a warm invitation to visit his ranch in Sonoma Valley, fictionalized as "The Valley of the Moon" in his 1913 novel by that name.
Price: $3,800