THE SKIN

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1952. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The first edition in English, translated from the Italian by David Moore. In this revered work, the author buries himself in the bleakness of wartime Naples, transformed by defeat into an open-air market of duplicity, prostitution, and half-interred bodies, all of it overseen by Americans who in their star-spangled naivete never completely understand exactly why they are there. Octavo: [viii], 344 pp. Original gray cloth binding, with black-stamped titles and decorations. Some general shelfwear to the dust jacket, which is a bit toned along the spine and extremities; (truncated) otherwise very good. (Inventory #: 78321)