ROBERT WALSER: ANSWER TO AN INQUIRY

Brooklyn, NY: Ugly Duckling Press, 2010. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Brooklyn, NY: Ugly Duckling Press, 2010. Hardcover. As New/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 65 pages. Artist Book. New translation of Robert Walser's text interspersed with interpretative contemporary art by Friese Undine. One of the most beautiful literary and art books of our time. Limited Edition of 75 numbered and signed copies. Each copy comes with a 10 X 12 inch LetterPress original print that is numbered and signed by the artist. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the regular trade edition. The Limited Edition is now rare. Presents, in its collectible Limited Edition format, Robert Walser's "Beantwortung einer Anfrage" in a new and definitive English translation by Paul North. Interspersed with stunning neo-Expressionist, original art by Friese Undine. A quirkily original and masterly short piece written in the form of a letter. "Walser assumes the voice of a great man of the theater responding to an aspiring actor's Request for Advice. The young actor is given very simple, practical suggestions on how best to perform absolute anguish. A collaboration between translator Paul North and artist Friese Undine, accompanied by more than 40 original drawings" (Publisher's blurb) . How to convey deep suffering: Surely there is no literary artist who can describe it from personal experience and tell us about it as Robert Walser could. "How to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius, who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: A Paul Klee in words, the maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W. G. Sebald; an amalgam, as Susan Sontag suggests, of Stevie Smith and Samuel Beckett" (Publisher's blurb) . An absolute "must-have" title for Robert Walser, Paul North, and Friese Undine collectors. This is a copy of the Limited Edition of 75 copies, indicated/numbered as such on the Back Limitation Page. It is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen by Paul North and Friese Undine. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. It comes with a stunning neo-Expressionist, 10 X 12 inch LetterPress original print, "The Sufferer", that is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully numbered and signed in pencil on recto by the artist. This title is a great Artist Book. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the Limited Edition available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed set thus. 40 plates, 1 original print. One of the greatest writers of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ROBERT WALSER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1933254742.