Best of
20th-Century

1938

Address Unknown


Kathrine Kressmann Taylor - 1938
    Published in book form a year later and banned in Nazi Germany, it garnered high praise in the United States and much of Europe. A series of fictional letters between a Jewish art dealer living in San Francisco and his former business partner, who has returned to Germany, Address Unknown is a haunting tale of enormous and enduring impact.

Tracy's Tiger


William Saroyan - 1938
    The Saroyan story was transplanted from New York to 1950s San Francisco for the musical.

On the Edge of Reason


Miroslav Krleža - 1938
    In On the Edge of Reason, his protagonist is a middle-aged lawyer whose life and career have been eminently respectable and respected. One evening, at a party attended by the local elite, he inadvertently blurts out an honest thought. From this moment, all hell breaks loose.... On the Edge of Reason reveals the fundamental chasm between conformity and individuality. As folly piles on folly, hypocrisy on hypocrisy, reason itself begins to give way, and the edge between reality and unreality disappears.--back cover

A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas


Virginia Woolf - 1938
    In A Room of One's Own (1929), she examines the work of past women writers, and looks ahead to a time when women's creativity will not be hampered by poverty, or by oppression. In Three Guineas (1938), however, Woolf argues that women's historical exclusion offers them the chance to form a political and cultural identity which could challenge the drive towards fascism and war.

The Theater and Its Double


Antonin Artaud - 1938
    

Homage to Catalonia


George Orwell - 1938
    This famous account describes the war and Orwell’s own experiences. Introduction by Lionel Trilling.

Uncle Tom's Children


Richard Wright - 1938
    Published in 1938, this was the first book from Wright, who would continue on to worldwide fame as the author of the novels Native Son and Black Boy.

The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel


Nikos Kazantzakis - 1938
    Following an encounter with the former Helen of Troy (now returned to her husband, the king of Sparta, after the ignominious defeat of the Trojans), Odysseus gradually wends his way to Egypt and southward, grappling all the while with questions about the nature of God. Considered by Kazantzakis himself to be one of his most important works, The Odyssey takes readers on a richly imagined quest for adventure and understanding with one of literature’s most timeless characters.

Iron Gustav: A Berlin Family Chronicle


Hans Fallada - 1938
    Meanwhile, the First World War is destroying his career, his country and his pride in the German people. As Germany and the Hackendahl family unravel, Gustav has to learn to compromise if he is to hold onto anything he holds dear. Iron Gustav is both a moving, realist account of the aftermath of the First World War, and a deeply involving story of a family in crisis. Yet running through the unflinching truth, immediacy and emotional power of Fallada's prose is the charming, almost folkloric whimsicality that makes him such a master story-teller.

Torrents


Marie-Anne Desmarest - 1938
    About the life they build together and then how his past irrevocably alters their future.

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich


Bertolt Brecht - 1938
    Written when Brecht was in exile in Denmark and first staged in 1938 it was inspired in part by his recent trip to Moscow where he had been researching tasks for the anti-Nazi effort.

Count Belisarius


Robert Graves - 1938
    Invaders threatened on all fronties, but they grew to respect and fear the name of Belisarius, the Emperor Justinian's greatest general. With this book Robert Graves again demonstrates his command of a vast historical subject, creating a startling and vivid picture of a decadent era.

In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories


Delmore Schwartz - 1938
    Eight stories portray the world of the New York intellectual during the 1930's and 1940's, probing the conflict between ambitious, educated youths and their immigrant parents.

Selected Essays


Virginia Woolf - 1938
    They are enchanting in their own right, and indispensable to an understanding of this great writer.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day


Winifred Watson - 1938
    When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. The alluring nightclub singer, Delysia LaFosse, becomes her new employer, and Miss Pettigrew encounters a kind of glamour that she had only met before at the movies. Over the course of a single day, both women are changed forever.

Dynasty of Death


Taylor Caldwell - 1938
    The mighty saga of three generations cursed by a bloodstained fortune, set in the 19th century.

The Last Man Alive


A.S. Neill - 1938
    The adventures of a group who survived a poisonous cloud that turned everyone else into stone.

After 1903 - What?


Robert Benchley - 1938
    Includes the classic, "Ladies' Wild."

Caterva


Juan Filloy - 1938
    But this is no political thriller. Like his literary "descendant" Julio Cortazar--who mentions this book in "Hopscotch"--Filloy is far more concerned with his characters' occasionally farcical inner lives than with their radical machinations. With its encyclopedic feel, and its satirical look at both solidarity and nonconformity, "Caterva" is considered to be among Filloy's greatest achievements.

School for Barbarians


Erika Mann - 1938
    The Nazi program prepared for its future by alienating children from their parents, promoting notions of racial superiority instead of science, and developing a cult of personality centered on Hitler.

Learning to Live: Flags on the Battlements


Anton S. Makarenko - 1938
    Flags on the Battlements: a translation of Флаги на башнях, the sequel to Pedagogical Poem (Педагогическая поэма), into English.

House of All Nations


Christina Stead - 1938
    Set in an elite European bank in the 1930s, Stead’s epic spans the interwar years of a money-hungry Paris. Jules Bertillon, the distrustful and unpredictable bank director, sees every national disaster—including war—as an opportunity for riches. Adored by his clients for his ability to rake in staggering profits, Bertillon leaves no opening wasted—even if it means dealing with unsavory speculators or ruthless gamblers while his clients suffer the consequences. A stunning page-turner, House of All Nations is as significant and resonant today as it was upon its publication in 1938.

A Game of Snakes and Ladders


Doris Langley Moore - 1938
    The show closes, and Daisy stays on with a well-to-do businessman while Lucy eagerly plans her return to England. But then she falls seriously ill, then in debt to Daisy’s lover. She finds that Daisy, anxious not to alienate her meal ticket, has rashly promised that Lucy will remain in Egypt and work for him until he’s repaid.Thus in Egypt they remain, over the course of nearly 20 years, while Moore’s intricate, lovely plot unfolds. Frivolous Daisy, the cause of Lucy’s woes, ascends the ladder of wealth while Lucy, downtrodden but diligent, slaves and toils. Misunderstandings, deceptions, and self-deceptions abound, and finally the stage is set for Lucy’s “sweeping triumph”, as giddy and satisfying a climax as any a 19th century master could have conceived. A Game of Snakes and Ladders may remind readers of Fanny Burney or George Eliot, or even Jane Austen, but it’s always, definitively and incomparably, Doris Langley Moore. This new edition includes an introduction by Sir Roy Strong.