With a Note to Klaus Mann Laid In
It Can't Happen Here
Publication: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1935. First Edition.
Notes: One of Lewis's later novels, and one of his better works, still in print today. On the front of the dust jacket it asks the question, posed when the authoritarian America First movement seemed to be gaining steam, "What will happen when America has a dictator?" The book was inspired by Huey Long and his influential supporter Father Charles Coughlin, who had a popular radio program.
458 pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (stated). A very good or better copy in a very good dust jacket missing a chip along the top edge, affecting two letters and with some fading to the red ink on the spine.
This copy has a small autograph sentiment signed by Lewis laid in. The slip reads, "Sat. For Klaus Mann, with my greetings. Sinclair Lewis. It Can't Happen Here. Tue. 8:40." The note is a bit cryptic because it seems to be dated both Saturday and Tuesday; one possible explanation is that Lewis was referring to one of the stage performances of It Can't Happen Here on a Tuesday. Klaus Mann is likely the son of the novelist Thomas Mann. He emigrated to the United States in 1936 and knew Lewis (in fact, according to an article in the 1951 Atlantic, Mann put Lewis on the masthead of a literary journal he was editing without Lewis's knowledge).
The note to Klaus Mann was torn just above the signature and has been professionally repaired.
Item No: #364827
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