Bread and a Stone [*SIGNED*]

Berlin: Seven Seas Publishers. Good. 1961 (c.1941). 1st printing thus. Softcover. [moderately worn book, a couple of diagonal creases in upper right corner of front cover, where the cover lamination is also starting to lift; front cover separating from spine by about 1/2-inch at top, slight dog-earing at top of spine]. (Seven Seas Books) Series Trade PB INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the half-title page: "For Luther Nichols / Gratefully[?] / Alvah Bessie / SF / 1962." An uncommon reprint edition of the author's third book, a novel about a ex-convict farmhand who finds love for the first time with the young widow on whose farm he's employed. This somewhat uncommon edition was published in Berlin the same year the Berlin Wall went up; in fact the publisher's address, Glinkastrasse 13-15, is just a few blocks inside the Soviet sector, i.e. East Berlin, and it's noted that the book itself was "manufactured in the German Democratic Republic" (East Germany). The "Seven Seas Books" series is described in the book as "A Collection of Works by Writers in the English Lanugage," and the enterprise seems to have survived for a number of year beyond the raising of the Wall. (The same publisher issued a paperback edition of Bessie's memoir, "Inquisition in Eden," in 1967.) Signed by Author . (Inventory #: 25355)