The Periodic Table (Signed. First American Edition, Second Printing.)
New York: Schocken Books, 1985. Signed, First American Edition, Hardcover. Signed by the author on the front flyleaf in ink. Bound in navy blue publisher's cloth, covers are plain with silver foil lettering on the spine. Contents include: Argon, Hydrogen, Zinc, Iron, Potassium, Nickel, Lead, Mercury, Phosphorus, Gold, Cerium, Chromium, Sulfur, Titanium, Arsenic, Nitrogen, Tin, Uranium, Silver, Vanadium, and Carbon. 233 pp. Illustrated dust jacket is in turquoise blue, yellow, black and white with silhouetted figures on the cover. A black and white picture of the author is present on the back flap. A certificate of authenticity #3094037, Catalog 292, Item 757 from R&R Enterprises Autograph Auctions accompanies this book, and is laid in.
FROM THE DUST JACKET FLAP: "Primo Levi is justly regarded in his native Italy as one of its leading men of letters. A chemist by profession, in this book he writes about incidents of his life in which one or another of the elements of the periodic table figured in such a way as to become a personal preoccupation. For example, vanadium: Levi was a chemist for an Italian company that imported vanadium from Germany to use in its varnish. On one occasion the shipment from the German supplier was of such a character that the batch of varnish with which it was mixed never dried. Levi wrote to his opposite number, the chemist in the German firm. After much correspondence, that person admitted that the vanadium supplied had not been up to sample, paid Levi's claim, and shipped the proper chemical. But the suspicion had been growing in Levi's mind that the man with whom he was corresponding had been the chief of a laboratory in Auschwitz in which he himself had worked as a starved and abused prisoner. What that recognition meant -- for both men -- and what happened thereafter was an ironic working out of an infamy decades old but not ended."
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR: "Primo Levi, (1919-1987), is the author of two classic memoirs of the experience of the concentration camps, "Survival in Auschwitz" and "The Re-awakening." (Also from the dust jacket.) "A Jewish-Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Holocaust survivor, Levi was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel." (Wikipedia.)
CONDITION: Both book and dust jacket are in fine condition. Completely unmarked except for author's signature. Binding is tight. A remarkable first American edition, second printing copy.
PLEASE NOTE: This book will arrive with "signature required" upon delivery. Full refund if not satisfied. Like New / Like New.
8vo.
Item #075239
ISBN: 0805239294
Price: $1,500.00