LETTERS AND DRAWINGS OF BRUNO SCHULZ WITH SELECTED PROSE - Rare Fine Copy of The First American Edition/First Printing: The "Kosciuszko Foundation Anniversary" Issue

Schulz, Bruno (Translated by Walter Arndt); Ficowski, Jerzy (Editor) & Zagajewski, Adam (Poet)

ISBN 10: 0060158964 / ISBN 13: 9780060158965

Published by New York City, NY: Harper & Row, 1988, 1987

About this Item

1st Printing. 256 pages. Published in 1988. Landmark collection of letters, drawings, photographs, and selected prose. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Bruno Schulz's "Letters And Drawings With Selected Prose" in a felicitous English translation. Beautifully supplemented with his drawings and three fictional pieces. Schulz is regarded as a major writer of the 20th century on the basis of two slim books, "Street of Crocodiles" and "Sanatorium Under The Sign of The Hourglass". Through incomparable evocations of his inner refuge-world, Schulz creates a child-like universe that will permanently change every reader's expectations about life and literature. His letters represent the last remaining writings that have been found, and show an awareness of important cultural events during his time despite the fact that he lived all his life in a remote and provincial Polish town. A Polish Jew, Schulz was hunted down and shot to death on a ghetto street by a Gestapo officer (to get back at a Gestapo rival who was Schulz's "patron") during a particularly brutal pogrom in 1942. His fellow Jews were too terrified to remove his body and waited for days before doing so to bury him. After the Second World War, Stalinist Poland condemned his work, inflicting a second, even more fatal death. But true greatness is not only its own reason for being, reward or redemption. It is, as Ozick acutely observes, the spirit-force itself that quivers constantly with life, contains ghosts, and is immortal. Bruno Schulz is one of the great human souls who have ultimately prevailed in a world of soul-killers. ALL great art and literature have a spiritual dimension, NOT to be confused with mere religiosity, and indeed its exact opposite as it is immanent to the artist's humanity. Bruno Schulz is among the very greatest artist/writers because of his spiritual commitment, not just this dimension: "A kind of DNA code for the secret language of imagination" (Cynthia Ozick). "He wrote sometimes like Kafka, sometimes like Proust, and at times succeeded in reaching depths that neither of them reached" (Isaac Bashevis Singer). "Schulz strikes us, stuns us even, with its overload of beauty" (John Updike). An absolute "must-have" title for Bruno Schulz collectors. This copy was one of a limited and unspecified number distributed by the Kosciuszko Foundation to celebrate its 75th Anniversary (1925-2000), indicated as such with a gilt-and-red seal that is neatly pasted on the front free endpaper. This title is a great collection. As far as we know, this is the only such copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the greatest artist/writers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER BRUNO SCHULZ TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0060158964. Seller Inventory # 14941

Bibliographic Details

Title: LETTERS AND DRAWINGS OF BRUNO SCHULZ WITH ...

Publisher: New York City, NY: Harper & Row, 1988

Publication Date: 1987

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: no

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Bruno Schulz (1892 - 1942) was a Polish Jewish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher. He is regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award. Several of Schulz's works were lost in the Holocaust, including short stories from the early 1940s and his final, unfinished novel The Messiah. Schulz was shot and killed by a German Nazi in 1942 while walking back home toward Drohobycz Ghetto with a loaf of bread. In his brilliant, intensely illuminated fiction, Schulz evoked a glorious world through a magical combination of personal myth, fantasy, and highly sensual language. "If Schulz had been allowed to live out his life," Isaac Bashevis Singer has said, "he might have given us untold treasures, but what he did in his short life was enough to make him one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived". This is the first English translation of Schulz's collected letters, and it includes as well 75 drawings and photos and nine pieces - essays, interviews, and narratives - previously uncollected in English. Schulz's letters shed light on the genesis of his small but stunning literary oeuvre. As it stands, this collection, painstakingly gathered by Jerzy Ficowski over a period of four decades, constitutes a remarkable portrait of a remarkable artist.

Language Notes:

Text: English, Polish (translation)