It Can't Happen Here

Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1935. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. SIGNED. 458pp. Octavo [20.5 cm] Black cloth over boards with a gilt title stamped on spine. Just a hair bruised at the spine ends. Hinges just a little soft. In a worn dust jacket, with closed and open tears in the edges. These tears have been backed with tape. Signed by Sinclair Lewis on the front free endpaper. A previous owner, Jerome K. Zipkin, has written his name in pen above the author's signature. Zipkin was an American socialite known for his friendship with Nancy Reagan. A signed first edition copy of Lewis' book of dystopian political fiction that is eerily reminiscent of the chaos and corruption facing many wealthy nations today. Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" was written just two years after Hitler's rise to power in Germany and describes the United States' descent into fascism controlled by Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip. Its title comes from a line from a wealthy capitalist in response to a journalist raising concerns that the country's new leader has transformed into a demagogue.