"STANDS BESIDE SANDBURG'S BIOGRAPHY OF LINCOLN": PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST TRADE EDITION OF REMEMBRANCE ROCK, CARL SANDBURG'S ONLY NOVEL, INSCRIBED BY HIM TO SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.

SANDBURG, Carl. Remembrance Rock. New York: Harcourt, Brace, (1948). Octavo, original navy cloth, original dust jacket. $850.

First trade edition of the only novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sandburg, a memorable presentation/association copy from the library of the first Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., with his inkstamp, "Asad Al Faqih," the inscription with Sandburg's attempted correction of "El", writing, "Asad El [sic] Faqih, with respect and good wishes Carl Sandburg."

In Remembrance Rock, his only novel, Sandburg gave "scope and body and direction to the American dream as only a great poet, patriot and liberal of first-rate talent could hope to" (Washington Post). "An ambitious, almost panoramic historical novel… it achieves Sandburg's stated aim, to write 'an epic', weaving the mystery of the American Dream with the costly toil and bloody struggles that have gone to keep alive and carry further that dream" (Heise 37). "As a work of art Remembrance Rock stands beside Sandburg's biography of Lincoln" (New York Herald Tribune). Preceded by the same year's signed limited edition. Leisy, American Historical Novel, 19. This distinctive copy is inscribed by Sandburg to Sheik Asad Mansur al-Faqih, the first Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States and a delegate to the founding United Nation conference in 1945. A longtime resident of the United States, he died in California in 1989. With his owner inkstamp, "Asad Al Faqih" to upper fore-edge.

Book fine; faint rubbing, small closed tear to front edge of near-fine price-clipped dust jacket.