Algren, Nelson

The Man With the Golden Arm

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1949. First Printing. Hardcover. Signed by Nelson Algren “’THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM’ is Algren’s finest novel. It tells of Frankie Machine, the dealer at Schwiefka’s gambling joint, the man with the golden arm, the man who dealt the cards as if he could talk to them and they understand. Frankie was as tough as any of the regulars at Schwiefka’s but he wasn’t tough enough to throw the thirty-five-pound monkey that rode his back—which was his way of saying that he couldn’t stay too long away from the dope needle….Here is a poetry of language that makes tolerable the incredible material of lost and betrayed human beings; here is an ear tuned to the bizarre language of the disenchanted. Here is an unforgettable story.” (Abridged quotation taken from front and back flaps). TMB is proud to offer this gorgeous First American Edition of Nelson Algren’s (1909-1981) “greatest and most enduring” novel, “The Man with the Golden Arm.” Writing to the author in the year of publication, none other than Ernest Hemingway—the Acknowledged Virile God of Fiction, himself—noted the following. “Into a world of letters where we have the fading Faulkner and that overgrown Li’l Abner Thomas Wolfe casts a shorter shadow every day, Algren comes like a corvette or even a big destroyer… Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful…. Mr. Algren, boy, you are good.” We agree with Mr. Hemingway (at least insofar as his praise of Algren is concerned) — as one should on such matters, to be sure. Hardcover in unclipped dust-jacket: the First American Edition, as noted above; First Printing, as stated on copyright page. This copy is additionally signed by Algren on recto of blank page immediately following the FFEP. Algren’s sizably wide signature, in thin blue pen ink, reads: “Nelson Algren.” Book in fine condition with only (virtually nonexistent) shelf-wear to fine-edges; minute-to-moderate bump to bottom right-hand corner of front cover & corresponding spot at bottom left-hand corner of back cover; Moderate age-toning & staining to various, small sections of text block; two small exhibits of staining to spine-edge, at bottom; one faint, tiny, circular exhibit of scuffing at back cover near center-middle. Dust-jacket in near-fine condition with moderate-to-pronounced shelf-wear (tiny closed tears, chipping, bumping) to fine-edges & corners of both front & back covers; moderate age-toning, rubbing, browning, and selecting tiny exhibits of spotting at same) — about as clean a copy of this stereotypically fragile dust-jacket as one can come across. Fine / Near Fine. [Item #5124]

Price: $325.00