I Went to the Soviet Arctic
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1939. First Edition. 8vo, 333pp; blue cloth with printed spine label. Just a trifle shelf-rubbed; fine in a boldly pictorial dust jacket with a closed tear to the front hinge, minor chipping to the corners. A handsome copy. Item #205727
The first commercially published book in Gruber's extraordinary long career. In 1932 she published her dissertation -- the first feminist study of Virginia Woolf -- before turning to journalism, where she made her lasting mark. As both a writer and photographer, Gruber covered, among other events, the rise of the Nazis in Germany, life in Stalin's gulags (in this book), the development of the Alaskan territory, the plight of Jewish refugees from Hitler, the formation of Israel, and the varied waves of migration to the new state. This copy has been inscribed and signed by Gruber on the first leaf: "To William Vaughey, Jr., Who may someday go the Arctic -- and love it. Ruth Gruber, April 26, 1940." The book includes a foreword by the explorer Vilhjalmur Steffanson.
Price: $250.00