Niels Lyhne
New York/London: The American-Scandinavian Foundation/Oxford University Press, 1919. First American edition. Hardcover. First American edition, and first edition in English, of Jacobsen's great novel, his second. xi, 284, [3, ads, 1, blank]. Maroon cloth with gilt seal on front board, lettered in gilt on the spine. Top edge gilt. Spine a bit darkened, small nick on top edge of rear board, but overall, a clean tight copy of an uncommon book. In "Letters to a Young Poet" Rilke wrote to his young correspondent Franz Xaver Kappus, "Now Niels Lyhne will open to you, a book of splendors and depths; the more often one reads it, the more everything seems to be contained within it, from life's most imperceptible fragrances to the full, enormous taste of its heaviest fruits. In it there is nothing that does not seem to have been understood, held, lived, and known in memory's wavering echo.... You will experience the great happiness of reading this book for the first time, and will move through its numberless surprises as if you were in a new dream." Very Good +. Item #404
Price: $100.00