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The Man With the Golden Arm

The Man With the Golden Arm

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The Man With the Golden Arm

by Algren, Nelson

  • Used
  • first
Condition
Tan cloth, stamped in green and red on spine. Spine sunned and soiled; edges lightly tanned; small areas of damp staining on fro
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About This Item

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1949. First edition, Malcolm Cowley's copy, with his ownership signature. 343 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Tan cloth, stamped in green and red on spine. Spine sunned and soiled; edges lightly tanned; small areas of damp staining on front; spotting and soil to rear; topstain faded; no dust jacket. First edition, Malcolm Cowley's copy, with his ownership signature. 343 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Malcolm Cowley's Copy. Perhaps best known for the 1955 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra, Algren's searing story of drug addiction was unsurprisingly controversial at publication, but nonetheless won the first ever National Book Award, and is now considered a classic of twentieth-century American literature.

Editor Malcolm Cowley's personal copy, with his ownership signature on the title page, and a mark at the top of page 21. He called Algren "a poet of the Chicago slums, and he might be Sandburg's successor," praise that appeared on the jacket copy of the first edition, and saw in Algren's new type of naturalism a "defense of the individual

Synopsis

Nelson Algren was an American writer. He wrote his first story in 1933 while he was in Texas working at a gas station. Before returning home one evening, he was caught stealing a typewriter from an abandoned classroom. For this, he spent nearly five months behind bars. The incident made a deep impression on him. It enhanced his identification with outsiders, has-beens, and the general failures that later populated his fictional world. His novel, The Man With The Golden Arm won the National Book Award in 1950. The novel tells the story of Frankie Machine, an addict who gets clean while in prison. This complex tale takes place in mid-century Chicago and explores the circumstances that led to Frankie’s addiction as well as the stories of the community of swindlers, tenement housing dwellers, and drunks that he takes up with. As his life spirals downward, Frankie does not believe that he is worth saving. One of Algren’s accomplishments is that he has the reader cheering for Frankie, and his friends as well. A relentless evocation of life in the inner-city, its victims and survivors.

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Details

Bookseller
James Cummins Bookseller US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
368127
Title
The Man With the Golden Arm
Author
Algren, Nelson
Format/Binding
343 pp. 1 vols. 8vo
Book Condition
Used - Tan cloth, stamped in green and red on spine. Spine sunned and soiled; edges lightly tanned; small areas of damp staining on fro
Quantity Available
1
Edition
First edition, Malcolm Cowley's copy, with his ownership signatu
Publisher
Doubleday & Company
Place of Publication
Garden City, NY
Date Published
1949
Keywords
American
Bookseller catalogs
Literature;

Terms of Sale

James Cummins Bookseller

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About the Seller

James Cummins Bookseller

Seller rating:
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Biblio member since 2009
New York, New York

About James Cummins Bookseller

Founded in 1978 by James Cummins, the firm has grown to include two New Jersey locations as well as the main store at 699 Madison Avenue (between 62nd and 63rd Streets) in New York City.Hours: Monday - Friday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (During July & August, until 4:00 p.m. on Fridays.)The Madison Avenue store is a seventh-floor oasis for book-lovers, a quiet and pleasantly furnished book room with a carefully chosen, expertly catalogued and broad-based selection of fine and rare books, autographs, manuscripts, and works of art. We have built notable private collections for American and international clients. Our stock is always changing, and our steady input from private buying and public auctions assures our clients of new surprises (and temptations!) at each visit. Our stock covers a wide range of collecting interests, with particular emphasis in the following fields: British and American Literature, Sporting Books, Private Press and Illustrated Books, 19th-Century Color Plate Books, Americana, Travel, Sets and Fine Bindings, History, and Authors' Manuscripts and Letters. Our catalogued inventory exceeds 50,000 titles, much of which can be searched on the internet. In addition, our New Jersey warehouse contains over 400,000 books in all subject areas. We might have the books you're looking for.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
First Edition
In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Sunned
Damage done to a book cover or dust jacket caused by exposure to direct sunlight. Very strong fluorescent light can cause slight...
Edges
The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
New
A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
Title Page
A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...

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