Shop

"To Gertrud Kraus in very old friendship": FIRST EDITION OF The Tower of Babel; Inscribed BY ELIAS CANETTI to Close Friend Gertrud Kraus

CANETTI, ELIAS.

The Tower of Babel [Auto-Da-Fe].

New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1946.

First American edition of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s most well-known work. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed and dated by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Gertrud Kraus in very old friendship from Elias Canetti October 1947.” The recipient Gertrud Kraus was an Israeli pioneer of modern dance in Israel and close friend of Canetti. Kraus studied piano at the State Academy in Vienna but after graduating decided that what she really loved was dance. She enrolled again at the State Academy, this time in the modern dance department headed by Gertrud Bodenwieser. After graduation, she joined Bodenwieser’s dance company. In the 1920s, Kraus’s style was known as expressionistic dance, or German dance. In 1929 Gertrud Kraus, together with Gisa Geert, was chief assistant to Rudolf von Laban, director of a trade union parade during the “Vienna Festival” in Vienna. In 1930, an impresario invited her to perform in Mandate Palestine. Her tour was a great success and she was invited back the following season. In 1933, her company performed her work Die Stadt wartet (“The City Waits”), presenting the modern metropolis as a fascinating but dangerous place. It was based on a short story by Maxim Gorki. In 1933, while she was in Prague performing for the Zionist Congress, leaders of a Czech communist cell contacted her and tried to recruit her for their purposes. The next day, she went to the Palestine Office in Prague, and applied for immigration. Kraus moved to Tel Aviv in 1935, first living with friends and then renting a basement that became her studio. She formed a modern dance company affiliated with the Tel Aviv Folk Opera, which was probably the only one of its kind in the world. In 1949, she won a scholarship to travel to the United States to learn the newest trends in modern dance. In 1950–1951, she founded the Israel Ballet Theatre, and became its artistic director. In 1968, Kraus was awarded the Israel Prize, in dance. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with light shelfwear. Jacket design by George Salter. Translated from the German by C. V. Wedgwood. An exceptional association.

Price: $3,000.00     Item Number: 117372