VIENNESE LOVE [Die freudlose Gasse]

First English edition. Publisher's original dark red cloth with black titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. A very good copy, the binding firm with some bumping to the spine and upper corners, the cloth with a few very light marks but fresh. The contents with a previous owner's bookplate and shelf stamp to the front pastedown, and his ownership inscription at the head of the title page. Some bleed to the edge of the endpapers from the boards otherwise the pages are clean throughout. The closed top edge of the text block is a little spotted. Complete with the rubbed and nicked dustwrapper that has several short closed tears and a couple of chips to the bottom edge (at the spine and upper fold corner). The flap edges, like the endpapers show evidence of some colour bleed. Correctly priced 7/6 net to the spine. A scarce title, especially so in dustwrapper.

Translated from the German by F. H. Lyon. First published in German in 1924 under the title "Die freudlose Gasse" and filmed the following year directed by fellow Austrian G. W. Padst and starring Greta Garbo in her second major role. The film was released in various censored forms and titles including "The Joyless Street" and "The Street of Sorrow". Hugo Bettauer (1872-1925) was a prolific author specialising in crime stories with a social message. In 1924 he founded the periodical "Er und Sie: Wochenschrift fuer Erotik und Lebenskultur" (later Bettauers Wochenschrift), advocating sex education, abortion, and homosexuality, but also calling attention to unemployment and poverty. Bettauer's prominent criticism of antisemitism, encapsulated in particular in the high-profile book and film "Stadt ohne Juden" made him the focus of attacks from right-wing newspapers, the Nazi Party branding him a "Red poet" and "corruptor of youth". In March 1925 he was murdered in his Vienna office by the National-Socialist Otto Rothstock who 18 months later walked out of a court appointed psychiatric clinic a free man.

Stock code: 20362

£275

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Author:

BETTAUER, Hugo

Category

Modern First Editions
Crime / Detective
Literature
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