Prater Violet (1945)

"You Give to the Movement a Theatrical Importance Beside Which the Slaughter of Rasputin Is Just a Quick Breakfast":
First American Edition of Isherwood's Prater Violet, 1945

Isherwood, Christopher. Prater Violet. New York: Random House, 1945.

12mo. Hardcover. 1st Edition 1st Printing.

First American edition of this fictionalized memoir/novel about Isherwood's experiences in filmmaking and the rise of Nazism, in the original dust jacket. Isherwood's first novel since Goodbye to Berlin (the basis for “Cabaret”), this novel deals with the pre-war British film world. "Here--in satire, parable, are the forces at work in the early '30's, the foreshadowing of the terrors to come, as in miniscule the pattern of European conflict is reflected in a moving picture studio where Friedrich Bergmann has been imported from Vienna to direct the production of Prater Violet. Isherwood--in person--enters the story to work on the script... The unimportance of the film, the puny mentalities of the studio world, the pointless feuding, accent Bergmann's mounting fear as the political scene in Vienna brings threat to his family" (Kirkus). Isherwood worked heavily in film during the 1930s and this novel is given verisimilitude by his experiences. Shelf number sticker and bookseller ticket to rear endpaper. Book with nickel-size stain to bottom of rear board and shallow marginal stain to last half of text. Dust jacket with a few tape repairs to verso and only light rubbing to extremities. An extremely good copy.