Death in Venice
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.
First American edition, first printing. Association copy signed by Thomas Mann on the fly-leaf and inscribed to John and Harriet Weaver, "very grateful for their visit. Pacific Palisades 6. October 1942." 284 pp. plus 2 advertising pages at rear. Bound in publisher's black cloth stamped in dark red, black topstain, patterned endpapers; lacking the dust jacket. Near Fine with sunned spine and light rubbing to extremities and topstain. Bookseller ticket to front free endpaper, light toning to contents. A beautiful signed copy of the Nobel laureate's novel about an older man's self-destructive obsession with an adolescent boy.
The journalists John Downing Weaver and Harriet Sherwood Weaver moved to Los Angeles from Kansas City in 1940. John wrote articles, fiction, and history, famously clearing the names of 167 Black soldiers falsely accused in 1906 of complicity in the death of a White man, while Harriet crusaded for better management of the hills sounding the city. Thomas Mann settled in Los Angeles in 1941 and built his "Seven Palms" house in the Pacific Palisades the following year. Here he wrote his anti-Nazi broadcasts for the BBC, and here he inscribed this book to two fellow members of the Los Angeles literary scene.
Price: $15,000