Blue Danube (1945)
"In the Long Night in Which They Lived, Any Light Would Come to Them, It Had to Come from the Outside":
First Edition of Ludwig Bemelmans’s Blue Danube, 1945
Bemelmans, Ludwig. Bemelmans, Ludwig. The Blue Danube. New York: Viking Press, 1945.
Large octavo. Hardcover. 1st Edition.
First edition of this allegorical World War II novel about a small European town and life under an authoritarian regime, with beautiful color illustrations by author and illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans. Published just a month before VE Day, this color-illustrated novel tells the story of a small island on the Danube with no legal existance that becomes the target of Nazi officials in nearby Regensburg, Germany. Written by the author of the Madeline children's series, fervent anti-Nazi Ludwig Bemelmans, the novel shows how any resistance--from indifference to outright action--is essential to overcoming an authoritarian regime. Book near-fine, with very faint marginal dampstain, slight offsetting to rear endpaper, and a bit of white soiling to rear board. Dust jacket extremely good, with only faint dampstaining, light wear to extremities, and tape repair to verso. A collectible copy.