David Golder

Irène Némirovsky was almost unknown when she published David Golder in 1929. Since 1921 she had published several short stories under a pseudonym in periodicals, but nothing that had brought her any recognition. The publication of David Golder by Grasset changed her status: the publisher made much of the young novelist’s age (twenty-seven), her Russian origins, and the anonymous arrival of the manuscript, which Némirovsky had sent by post and for which she had to be tracked down for identification.

The novel immediately received excellent reviews in numerous newspapers; other, more reticent articles, taken aback by the book’s darkness and a certain vulgarity, nonetheless contributed to its success through the whiff of scandal that surrounded it from the outset.

A very fine copy, as issued.