Iceland: The First American Republic (Signed with Typed Letter)

New York: Doubleday Doran & Co., 1939. Bound in light blue moire silk with silver and green stamping on spine. Inner hinge of front free endpaper is cracked from top to bottom but is being held well by the hinge webbing, offsetting of endpapers; internally clean and fairly tightly bound. Dust jacket, which has a wrap-around photo of a port city in Iceland, is price-clipped, and has moderate edge wear, especially spine ends. 275 pages with frontispiece and other B&W illustrations from photos, with bibliography and statistical tables. This is a very special copy inscribed by author on the front free endpaper "To Laura and Carl [Lomen] from their old friend / Stef / July 21 1939". In addition, a carbon copy of a letter typed on Stefansson's letterhead [blind stamped with his name and New York address "67 Morton Street") is neatly folded and tipped to the half title page. The letter is dated July 21, 1939 and is addressed to General Leach, which may have been a mistake by Stefansson as the letter was mailed in advance of the book to three people (General George Leach, Carl J. Lomen, and Ross A. Collins) or maybe he used the same letter for all three recipients. Based on the contents of the letter, the Lomens and General Leach were friends of Stefansson, while Collins was instrumental in obtaining funding from the US federal government while a member of the House of Representives for Stefansson's "Arctic Manual" about living and working conditions the Army would encounter in Alaska (published 1940). The copy of this book as Stefansson states in his letter was an advance copy issued prior to the official publication date of July 28.. Signed by Author. First Edition, Presumed. Hard Cover in Dust Jacket. Very Good/Very Good.