As I Remember Him: The Biography of R. S.

Little, Brown and Company / Atlantic Press Monthly Books, Boston, MA. 1940. Hardcover. First Printing (NAP). Book is tight, square, and unmarked but for a gift inscription on the FFFP. Book Condition: Good; sunfaded spine; glue browning to endpapers; light shelfwear to board edges. No DJ. Red cloth boards and spine with gilt lettering on the spine and front board. Clean internals. Inner hinges are sound and not split. Deckle fore edge. 443 pp 8vo. “Why in thunder should anyone want to write a biography of R. S.?” a friend asks the author of As I Remember Him: “[W]hen he died, the world had no unusual reasons to mourn him.” “R. S.,” as Zinsser never acknowledges in this book, is Zinsser himself. The initials stood for “Romantic Soul,” which is how he sometimes referred to himself. As I Remember Him is one of the more unusual experiments in autobiography. The book is written in two voices: one of the unnamed author, the other of R. S. himself. The author sets R. S.’ material in context or comments–not always positively–upon it. The book covers Zinsser's experiences as a German immigrant, his medical career, work with the Red Cross, and scientific achievements in bacteriology and immunology, particularly typhus, while offering personal reflections on life, science, and history. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1941. A clean very presentable copy.…