Hiroshima.

HERSEY, John.

$4,500.00

Item Number: 143221

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.

The original August 31, 1946 issue of The New Yorker of Hersey’s classic work and is the work’s first appearance. The entire issue of the magazine is dedicated to Hersey’s piece, and this example is a presentation copy, inscribed on the final page to poet and publisher Kirby Congdon, “For Kirby Congdon – John Hersey, February 24, 1985.” Hersey’s account of the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, was judged the finest piece of American journalism of the 20th century by a 36-member panel associated with New York University’s journalism department. In very good condition. Rare and desirable signed.

Hiroshima is a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey. It tells the stories of six survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, covering a period of time immediately prior to and one year after the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. "The quietest and the best of all the stories that have been written about the most spectacular explosion in the time of man" (New York Times Book Review). "John Hersey once described himself as a novelist of contemporary history In 1946 he visited Hiroshima, interviewed survivors of the first atomic bomb attack, and published the New Yorker article which changed him profoundly. In Hiroshima Hersey drew from the victims themselves the understanding of history that had eluded him as a war correspondent. The six Hiroshima residents told him how they had lived before the bomb struck, why they were not killed, and precisely how illness, exhaustion, and personal sorrow had qualified their survival" (Contemporary Novelists, 634).