?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
PROPERTY SOLD TO BENEFIT THE ELISABETH WOODBURN FUND ROTH, HENRY. Call It Sleep. 8vo, publisher's blue cloth, spine stamped in dark blue and gilt, light spotting to spine; dust jacket, few cellotape repairs on verso mending short closed tears to head and foot of spine panel and one at corner fold, some edge rubbing and creasing just touching three letters in title at spine panel head, unclipped; contents clean and unmarked; preserved in custom cloth chemise and 1/2 suede slipcase. New York: Robert O. Ballou, (1934)
first edition in first state jacket, a fine association copy, inscribed to lawrence fox. The inscription reads, "To Larry Fox, In awe at his incredible assiduity! Henry Roth." The relationship between Lawrence Fox and Roth ran deep. Not only did Fox serve as the trustee of the Henry Roth Literary Properties Trust, but he also is the dedicatee of Roth's follow-up novel to Call It Sleep, A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park (the first volume of the Mercy Of A Rude Stream tetralogy), published a full sixty years after the 1934 debut, thus ending what is literary legend as the longest writer's block in history. A title of the utmost rarity, with only one other signed example appearing at auction (Swann, 14 June 2001, lot 256, $18,000, Ben Sackheim copy).
