WIDELY VIEWED AS "THE FINEST NOVEL TO EMERGE FROM WWI": FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF THE CASE OF SERGEANT GRISCHA, 1928, ARNOLD ZWEIG'S SCATHING NOVEL ABOUT "MORAL CORRUPTION" IN THE GERMAN ARMY

ZWEIG, Arnold. The Case of Sergeant Grischa. London: Martin Secker, 1928. Octavo, original yellow cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition in English of Zweig's searing WWI novel—"often bracketed with… Farewell to Arms, Three Soldiers and All Quiet on the Western Front"—a splendid copy in the original dust jacket.

"WWI determined the outlook of a whole generation of writers and left untouched hardly a single serious writer of fiction" (Fishman, War Novels of Arnold Zweig, 443). Zweig, born the son of a Jewish laborer in Prussian Silesia, volunteered to serve in the German army in WWI, where he fought in the trenches "before getting a clerk's job at headquarters on the Eastern Front. It was from those experiences that Sergeant Grischa emerged… When he was driven out of Nazi Germany in 1933—as a Jew and a Socialist… Zweig went to live in Palestine for 15 years, returning to his homeland in 1948 at the invitation of the East German Government" (New York Times). The inaugural work in a series of six novels, Sergeant Grischa presents a scathing portrayal "of the German army, from the common man in labor service to the commander in chief."

Widely viewed as "the finest novel to emerge from WWI" (New York Times), it is "often bracketed with… Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, Dos Passos' Three Soldiers and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front." In its pages, Zweig wanted "to show how "the destiny of one individual is… inseparably linked with that of a whole nation… Sergeant Grischa is not a plea for the life of one man, but a study of moral corruption whose roots reach down into the foundation of national life" (Fishman, 434-40). "Zweig's most famous novel… Sergeant Grischa demonstrates how the administration of justice is abused as it becomes a political weapon" (Sollars & Jennings, Facts on File Companion to the World Novel, 144-45). First edition in English, first printing: with no edition or printings stated on copyright page. Preceded by the 1927 first edition in German. With translation by Eric Sutton. Small contemporary owner inscription dated year of publication.

Book fine; light edge-wear to spine head of price-clipped about-fine dust jacket.