HIM WITH HIS FOOT IN HIS MOUTH; and Other Stories

New York Cambridge Philadelphia San Francisco London Mexico City Sao Paolo Sydney: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984. First Edition, First Printing. Cloth. Very Fine/Near Fine. SIGNED by the Author on the front free endpaper, tall 8vo, pale blue cloth with gold lettering on spine, archival mylar-protected typographical dust jacket, 294 pages. Krochs & Brentanos' "1st Edition Circle" bookmark. SUPERIOR SIGNED COPY: Tight, bright, clean in comparable dust jacket (unclipped). Small clean nick to the foot of the dj's spine.<br /> <br /> The author's second collection of short stories. Now considered a modern classic. The First Hardcover Edition precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. <br /> <br /> Saul Bellow's "Him With His Foot In His Mouth" presents his masterly second collection of short stories. As is now well-known, "foot-in-mouth disease" was one of Saul Bellow's foibles, of which he, too, was painfully aware, this book being his way of coming to grips with and transmutation of an insurmountable personal limitation into great literature.<br /> <br /> "Dark, devastating, and funny, Bellow's writing reflects the solitude and isolation of the immigrant experience as well as the troubled predicament of Judaism in post-war society" (Publisher's blurb). <br /> <br /> The Nobel Prize Citation is eloquent: "For the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work". An essential title for Bellow collectors!