L'Affaire Courilof; Roman

Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1933. First Edition. Unopened; faint hint of toning toward edges; fine in original glassine. 8vo, 276pp; priginal printed wrappers. One of 300 roman-numeraled "exemplaires de press" out of 1400 printed on Alfa Navarre. There were another 72 copies divided among smaller limitations on different fine papers. This copy bears an undated signed inscription on the half-title: "A Monsieur Gabriel Marcel en bien sincère hommage, Irène Nemirovsky." Born in Ukraine into a Jewish family, the author fled at age fifteen with her parents during the Russian Revolution of 1917, eventually settling in Paris. She enjoyed modest success as a French writer, especially with her first novel David Golder (1929), but along with her family she was denied French citizenship. Because of her Jewish heritage -- and despite her conversion to Catholicism -- she fell into disfavor under the Vichy regime. She was deported, ultimately arriving in Auschwitz, where she died in 1942. Although she fell into long neglect, Nemirovsky's reputation was restored with the posthumous publication of her critically acclaimed novel Suite Francaise (2004), an international bestseller. The intended recipient of the inscription -- though it is unclear whether inscribed press copies were actually distributed -- was a prominent philosopher.