Jabotinsky, Vladimir

The War and the Jew

New York, NY, USA: Dial Press, 1942. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Vladimir Jabotinsky. "The worst feature of the situation is the tendency, when the problem cannot be altogether ignored, at all events to minimize its importance; to make a pretence of believing that there is no actual Jewish tragedy; that it is simply a matter of just some tiresome skin-deep wounds which can be repaired with a couple of stitches. Whereas the truth is that the tragedy has reached a formidable intensity of pain and doom which is without precedent in all human history; that to end it a colossal world-effort is needed, an effort equally without precedent; and that this effort will have to be made." (from Chapter One, pg. 28) Thus writes Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), the Russian-born Jewish Leader who founded the Revisionist Zionist movement. To put it mildly, his pleas & warnings went unheeded by the Allied powers of the Second World War, & the Holocaust of European Jewry that had just begun when he wrote this shortly before his death proceeded to a depth & scale that even he may not have been able to imagine. We offer a special limited edition of Jabotinsky's last-to-be-written, first-to-be-posthumously published work. Hardcover in slipcase, a somberly handsome production with leather & gilt spine & half-boards, marbled paste-downs & endpapers. Per colophon at recto of fourth leaf, "This is number 86 (stamped above dotted line) of a/ special edition of which/ two hundred and ten copies/ have been printed." Above this, Jabotinsky has hand-written his signature in bold black ink. Although published & copyrighted in 1942, two years after Jabotinsky's death, we surmise that he signed appx. 210 such leaves which were then bound into these special volumes. We have compared this signature from specimens we have seen, & it appears to be authentically from his hand. With an Introduction by Pierre van Paassen (1895-1968), the noted Dutch-Canadian-American journalist & minister who was acquainted with Jabotnsky; & a Conclusion by Col. John Henry Patterson (1867-1947), an accomplished British Army officer who had led a legion of Jewish soldiers in then-British Mandatory Palestine during the First World War & was also a friend of Jabotinsky. An outstanding, most-haunting-in-hindsight Jabotinsky collectible in its singularly rarest contemporary form (we have encountered no comparables), inestimably enhanced by his signature. Book in relatively quite fine-to-very-fine condition with slight-to-mild rubbing to front, back covers & esp. spine (with gilt letters & graphics thereon mostly bright & completely intact); a bit of wear & a few tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; light rubbing, age-toning to side & lower edges of text block; slight rubbing & a few faint scratches to gilt upper edge of same. Interior fine-to-very-fine with only a hint of age-toning to page leaves; former owner's signature & "449"(April 1949?) in blue ink at upper right margin of blank first leaf after front endpaper; tiny bumps at corners of a few leaves. Slipcase (again relatively) near-fine with mostly mild rubbing, occasional small, faint spot-stains to panels; mild-to-moderate wear, bumps & creases to all outer edges & corners incl. instances of short, closed tearing esp. at upper edges/corners. Fine-Very Fine / (Slipcase) Near-fine. [Item #8529]

Price: $200.00