"A PIONEER OF THE MODERNIST STYLE": FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF KNUT HAMSUN'S ROAD LEADS ON, THE CONCLUSION TO HIS MASTERFUL TRILOGY WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER RECEIVING THE 1920 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

HAMSUN, Knut. The Road Leads On. New York: Coward-McCann, 1934. Thick octavo, original tan cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition in English of the Nobel laureate's final novel in his peerless trilogy that includes Vagabonds and August, a landmark work on modernity's rootlessness by the writer credited by I.B. Singer for launching "the whole modern school of fiction," a handsome copy in original dust jacket.

Hamsun, awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize for Literature, "anticipated everything from the terrifying absurdities of Kafka to the desiccated ennui of the existentialists… the result was a series of breathtaking 'psychological' novels that astounded both critics and readers alike" (Guardian). "Isaac Bashevis Singer argued that 'the whole modern school of fiction in the 20th century stems from Hamsun'… Hesse called him his favorite writer; Hemingway recommended his novels to Scott Fitzgerald; Gide compared him to Dostoevsky, but believed that Hamsun was 'perhaps even more subtle.' The list of those who loved his sly, anarchic voice is long" (New Yorker).

The Road Leads On (Men livet lever, 1933) is the final novel in Hamsun's pivotal trilogy that includes Vagabonds (Landstrykere, 1927) and August (August, 1930). Written near the end of his life, these core works resonate with "the amazing fertility of episode and dialogue characteristic of his early novels… But they do more. They are perhaps chiefly significant in that they provide us with a final critical appraisal of… the so-called 'outcast from society'… the vagabond spirit and the modern spirit are identified with one another, united indissolubly in one and the same character." As the culmination of Hamsun's trilogy, Road Leads On stands out for its "close and detailed critical analysis of the essential spiritual barrenness of the wanderer" (Gustafson, Six Scandinavian Novelists, 268-9, 272). Hamsun remains "a pioneer of modernist style… deeply aware of modernity's newly created sense of homelessness" (Zagar, Knut Hamsun, 10). Yet he was, as well, an unrepentant collaborator who, in his 80s, "welcomed the brutal German occupation of Norway during WWII and gave his Nobel Prize as a gift to the Nazi propaganda minister, Goebbels." To his biographer Kollen, Hamsun's fascist sympathies and literary genius continue to baffle, making him "a ghost who won't stay in the grave" (New York Times). First edition, first issue:with no statement of edition or printings on copyright page. Precedes the following year's English edition. With translation from the Norwegian by Eugene Gay-Tifft. Owner signature above first text leaf.

Book fine; minimal edge-wear, tiny bit of chipping to spine head of about-fine dust jacket.