THE MEMOIRS OF ELIAS CANETTI: THE TONGUE SET FREE, THE TORCH IN MY EAR, THE PLAY OF THE EYES

New York City, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1999. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1999. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 835 pages. Omnibus Edition of the author's memoirs. One of the towering literary achievements of the 20th century. The first and only appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. There is NO equivalent edition in the German original. The First Edition Thus is now scarce. Presents, in one massive volume, "The Memoirs of Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free, The Torch In My Ear, The Play of The Eyes" in now-classic English translations. The incomparable self-portrait of a great and original mind: A writer, a playwright, a thinker, and a memoirist. "Canetti worked brilliantly in many forms, but the three volumes that comprise his autobiography are where his genius is perhaps most evident" (Publisher's blurb). Canetti barely acknowledges, except as the ingredient of a complex psychodrama (involving him and his apparently impossible Mother, herself a misogynist, and the reason for his own lifelong misogyny), a key personal fact that any other writer would have felt justified bragging about: He wasn't just a Renaissance Man, steeped in literature, philosophy, and science. He was that very rare thing, a Renaissance Genius, who had a degree in chemistry, science in its invisible, that is, purest form. Despite the degree, he decided not to become a professional chemist. Indeed, his prescient awareness of the dangers of scientism, still the reigning academic ideology of our time, stems precisely from his being academically trained ("exposed") as a scientist himself. "Crowds And Power", his unclassifiable masterpiece, is an intellectual rejection of both Freud and Marx, two thinkers who thought of themselves as scientists. His analysis of mass movements (specifically Fascism) is anecdotal, philosophical, and literary. He turns science into literature, deploying physical, non-human phenomena as metaphors for The Crowd: Fire, rain, forests, bees, snakes, and so on, illuminating how individual human beings tragically become part of an irresistible and destructive collective unit. "Party In The Blitz: The English Years" (2005), about his difficult British exile, is the Coda to his memoir-trilogy, published posthumously. An absolute "must-have" title for Elias Canetti collectors. These titles are great books. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies of the individual volumes available online command hundreds of dollars each. Copies of this Omnibus Edition available online have very serious flaws or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. One of the greatest writers of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ELIAS CANETTI TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0374199507.