The Dream Life of Balso Snell.
"You once said to me that I talk like a man in a book. I not only talk, but think and feel like one": Limited First Edition of Nathanael West's The Dream Life of Balso Snell
The Dream Life of Balso Snell.
WEST, Nathanael.
$1,100.00
Item Number: 146620
Paris and New York: Contact Editions, 1931.
First edition of the author’s first novel. Octavo, finely bound in full morocco by The Harcourt Bindery with gilt titles and ruling to the spine in five compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt borders to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. One of only five hundred numbered copies, this is number 344. In fine condition.
Through a series of dreamlike encounters inside of the Trojan Horse, 'The Dream Life of Balso Snell' presents a young man's immature and cynical search for meaning. By its complete and disgusted rejection of all religious, political and artistic ideals, 'The Dream Life of Balso Snell' foreshadows the nihilism of West’s subsequent novels.
