The Decline of the West
Alfred K. Knopf.
First Thus. Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good. Item #UB-17995
First thus, the first American edition of the abridgment, stated. The authorized abridgment was prepared by Helmut Werner with the blessing of the Spengler estate, using Charles Francis Atkinson’s complete English translation, with connecting passages translated by Arthur Helps. Typography, binding, and dust jacket are by George Salter: his bold white calligraphic title on a charcoal ground, with Spengler’s portrait (Bettmann Archive) on the rear panel. The jacket is unclipped ($6.95), with flap code 0562. Black and red cloth hardcover, spine lettered in gilt. A particularly bright and clean copy, with the only interior marks being a previous owner notation on the rear endpaper (see below).
The copyright page carries a notice that the copyright is vested in the Attorney General of the United States and that the book was manufactured under License No. A-1790. This is a vestige of the WWII seizure of German-owned copyrights. From the library of John Lewis Wood (Indianapolis attorney, active for decades with the ACLU and in school desegregation litigation), with his characteristic reading note on the rear free endpaper: “13 September 1962 / MCBS,” the date he finished the book, with one of his three to four letter notations indicating that he read it as part of the Mid-Century Book Society, the highbrow book club edited by Jacques Barzun, Lionel Trilling, and W. H. Auden (1959–c. 1963),
Price: $60.00