A Penny for the Poor by BRECHT, BERTOLT - 1938

Robert Hale & Company, 1937. Hardcover. Acceptable. 1937. First Edition. 342 pages. No dust jacket. This is an ex-Library book. Red cloth with gilt lettering. Ex-library copy, with expected inserts and inscriptions. Binding remains firm. Pages are moderately tanned. Boards have moderate edge-wear with bumping to corners and noticeable rubbing to surfaces. White staining to front board.

New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc.. Very Good- with no dust jacket. 1938. First American Edition. Hardcover. First American Edition. A novel, based on the author's famous play, "A Threepenny Opera." Translated from the German by Desmond I. Vesey; chapter-head verses translated by Christopher Isherwood. --- In red cloth-covered hardcovers with titling and beggar's hand drawing in black on cover and spine. Lacks the dust jacket. --- With a little sunning to spine and binder's glue bleed-through at endpapers, otherwise volume is firm, unmarked and clean. Scarce in this edition. ; Octavo - 8 to 9 in. tall; 396 pages .

New York: Hillman, Curl, 1938. First American edition. Hardcover, octavo, red cloth boards, black spine and cover titles, lacking dust jacket, 396 pp. Fair condition, spine cocked and loose at backstrip, dampstaining to board edges resulting in some color bleed to edges of endpapers and tops of last few leaves.. From the library of New York School poet, publisher and librettist, Kenward Elmslie. Written in blue ink on front free endpaper:"Kenward Gray Elmslie / April 27, 1947" in his hand. Adaptation of Brecht's famous The Threepenny Opera, translated by Desmond I. Vesey ad Christopher Isherwood. Brecht is cited as an important influence not just on Elmslie but also his partner of the 1950s, librettist and lyricist John La Touche, for whom the goal of translating The Threepenny Opera was an unrealized fixation.

New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1938. This is a Very Good copy of the First American Edition of Brecht's novelization of "Threepenny Opera." Not a common title. Translation from the German by Desmond I. Vesey; with Verses translated byChristopher Isherwood. Red cloth binding with black titling and the design of the outstretched hand of a begger. Clean text; 396 pages; yellow topstain; the Front Free Endpaper has been torn out, Mildly bumped. The spine has faded to a tan colour, and there are faint stains and floodmarks. A solid copy, if no longer the beauty it should be. In an archival plastic protector.. First American Edition.. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc.. Very Good in Poor dj. 1938. 1st U.S. edition. Hardcover. [book itself is solid and internally clean, some soiling and light shelfwear to top and bottom edges; the jacket, however, has had about as many bad things done to it as you can imagine: it's been laminated (which has resulted in considerable yellowing/discoloration, trimmed a bit along the top and bottom edges, and the flaps are glued to the pastedowns; some of the laminate has also been peeled away, which doesn't help matters much]. A novelization, essentially, of Brecht and Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera." Jacket-blurbed as "an unashamed and outrageous epic of roguery triumphant -- a rollicking, full-blooded story, whole-hearted in its descriptions of rascality and corruption," this translation was first published in England in 1937 by Robert Hale. A not-especially-pretty example of a fairly scarce book. .

The First American printing published by Hillman-Curl in 1938. The BOOK is in near Fine condition. Very light pushing at the spine ends. A hint of fading to the spine tips and cover edges. Mild offsetting to the end papers. The page edges and text block are lightly toned. Free from inscriptions and erasures. The fragile paper WRAPPER is complete and is in Very Good++ condition. It bears the correct price of $2.50 to the upper front flap. Age related edge wear with a little loss at the spine tips and flap fold ends. Some closed tears to the edges with a little associated creasing in places. The colouring to the front panel and spine remain very bright. The wrapper artwork looks very striking in the removable Brodart archival cover. A novel, based on the author's famous play, 'A Threepenny Opera'. Translated from the German by Desmond I. Vesey with the chapter-head verses translated by Christopher Isherwood. The first Brecht volume to appear in English. Very scarce with the wrapper in such condition.… Read More

New York: Hillman-Curl, 1938. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. First American edition. Translated by Desmond I. Vesey. Verse translation by Christopher Isherwood. Tiny stamped initials on half-title and copyright page, else fine in handsome near fine dust jacket with a light toning on the spine. A novel (later re-issued as *Threepenny Novel*) loosely based on John Gay's *The Beggar's Opera*, filtered through Brecht's experiences among the criminal fringe elements of the Weimar Republic. A novelization by Brecht of his famous collaboration with Kurt Weill, the 1928 musical drama *The Three-Penny Opera* (the opera had not previously appeared in America). The play continues to be widely performed, was filmed on many occasions, and provided the popular hit song "Mack the Knife." A nick copy of an important title.

New York: Hillman-Curl, 1938. First Edition in English; first American edition. Translated from the German by Desmond I. Vesey. Verses translated by Christopher Isherwood. Inscribed by the author in 1946 to Saul Bellow’s especially close friend and attorney (as well as the model for Harvey Simkin in Herzog), “for Sam Goldberg with best wishes bertolt brecht, ‘46 N.Y.C.” While Brecht’s letters are not uncommon, we recall having but a single inscribed book in the past, and can’t recall even seeing another. This novel followed the Threepenny Opera by several years, and while it features some of the same characters and situations, it is not a novelization of that celebrated work. However, if a signed Brecht is sought, one so closely related to that play would be the most desirable. The back cover cloth, extending onto the spine, is waterstained, affecting as well the back panel of the mended dust jacket and the edges of a few pages of text.