52 · [First Edition of Author's First Book] Goldshteyn, Y. L. [Yoel-Leyb]

DER LETSTER MENSH: A HOLEM FUN A MARE SHOYREDIGEN MENSHEN [XT] דער לעצטער מענש: א חלום פון א מרה שהורה׳דיגען מענשען

Varsha [Warsaw]: A. Gitlin, 1910. Item #43180

First edition of Author’s First Book. Later boards. 8vo, 108 pages, 20 cm. In Yiddish. Title translates as “The Last Man: A Dream of a Sorrowful Man.”
Fantasy novel by Y.L. Goldshteyn. OCLC incorrectly gives the date as 1900 (the author would have been 11 years old), but the NYBC description corrects the date to 1910.
Goldshteyn (1889-1940) “was born in the village of Kutsov (Kucow), near Belchatow, Poland….At age seventeen or eighteen, he opened in Belchatow a business in books and writings materials, and at the same time he began writing his work Der letster mentsh (The last man), which two years later was ready for publication.
During WWI, he wrote theatrical plays for local drama clubs. He was in Palestine, but soon he returned to Belchatow. He was active in Tseire-Tsiyon (Young Zionists). He composed his own distinctive works: Tsuzamenbrukh oder iberboy (Breakdown or construction), a fantasy novel in two volumes (Warsaw: Bikher, 1934), 565 pp. (vol. 1) and 657 pp. (vol. 2); Mitn pomen tsum shpigl (With one’s face at the mirror), three stories (Warsaw, 1939), 185 pp.; 1960 (Warsaw, 1939), 79 pp.—all with same publisher.
‘The ideas that Goldshteyn expressed in his work,’ wrote Y. Botoshanski, ‘will remain as a document of what an intelligent Jew was thinking at the beginning of the Hitler epoch…. In his manner of telling a story, he bordered on Dinezon and even Shomer, but he wrote straightforwardly and clearly and with an even keel and even with force.’ He died in Belchatów during the German occupation.” (Leksikon Fun Der Nayer Yidisher Literatur).
SUBJECT(S): Yiddish fiction. OCLC: 19302902. OCLC locates only 4 copies worldwide (YIVO, Harvard, Brandeis, HUC).
Institutional blindstamp and penceilling on title page; no other markings. Trimmed close with loss of a few letters on some pages, some bowing to boards, paper browning and somewhat fragile. Good Condition thus. Scarce. (YID-48-24-'L).

Price: $325.00