Description

FIRST EDITION.
The text was first published in serial form in  the Pictorial Review, before it was published in volume the same year. The novel became the best-selling book in the United States within two months of its publication.

AUTOGRAPH SIGNED LETTER:

"William Gerhardi
from
Edith Wharton
June 1927"

An Anglo-Russian novelist born in St Petersburg, William Alexander Gerhardie (1895 - 1977) was hailed by many of his contemporaries, including H.G. Wells, Katherine Mansfield, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, who called him "genius". His first novel Futility,  This largely autobiographical work, which veers between English comedy and Russian social realism, is one of the most neglected literary masterpieces. Edith Wharton wrote the foreword to the American edition of Futility in 1923:" Mr. Gerhardi's novel is extremely modern; but it has bulk and form, a recognizable orbit, and that promise of more to come which one always feels latent in the beginnings of the born novelist. For all these reasons - and most of all for the laughter, the tears, the strong beat of life in it - I should like to hand on my enjoyment of the book to as many other American readers as possible."