Call It Sleep - Henry Roth, Foreword by Walter Allen (Michael Joseph, UK First Edition, 1963)

This Michael Joseph UK first edition (1963) is of interest to collectors of Henry Roth, American modernist fiction, rediscovered 20th century classics, and significant UK first editions.

About: Very Good copy in the original black cloth binding with the striking purple and black striped dust jacket featuring a ghostly child silhouette and bold gold lettering; dust jacket in a clear protective wrapper, bright and sound with some light rubbing to extremities; pages with age toning consistent with the period; binding firm and square; a handsome and highly significant copy of one of the great rediscovered novels of American literature in its UK first edition, with the Walter Allen foreword that helped bring the novel to a new generation of readers.

Details:

• Title: Call It Sleep
• Author: Henry Roth
• Foreword: Walter Allen
• Publisher: Michael Joseph, London
• Publication Date: 1963
• Edition: UK First Edition
• Binding: Hardcover — original black cloth
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good (in clear protective wrapper; bright and sound; light rubbing to extremities)

Synopsis: Michael Joseph UK first edition, London 1963; the edition that rescued Call It Sleep from obscurity 29 years after its original 1934 American publication; foreword by Walter Allen; striking purple and black striped dust jacket with ghostly child silhouette in protective wrapper; appealing to collectors of Henry Roth, American modernist fiction, and significant UK first editions.

Review: Henry Roth's Call It Sleep, first published in America in 1934 to critical acclaim but commercial failure, is one of the great lost-and-found masterpieces of 20th century literature — a stream-of-consciousness novel set in the Jewish immigrant communities of New York's Lower East Side, following young David Schearl as he navigates the terror and wonder of childhood in a new world. The novel disappeared for nearly three decades before this 1963 Michael Joseph UK edition — with Walter Allen's championing foreword — began its rehabilitation. A 1964 American paperback reprint sold over a million copies and confirmed its status as a classic. This UK first edition, the catalyst for that rediscovery, is a genuinely significant and collectible copy of one of American literature's most remarkable stories of neglect and resurrection.