All Quiet On The Western Front.

Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1929. First American edition of this landmark novel of the 20th century. Octavo, original beige cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, To Mary Constance Ryder with my best wishes- New York July 1945 Eric Maria Remarque." Near fine in a very good dust jacket with a few small chips and light wear. Jacket design by Paul Wenck. Translated by A.W. Wheen. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Signed and inscribed first editions are rare. Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive. "The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure" (The New York Times Book Review). It is the basis for the 1930 film directed by Lewis Milestone, with the screenplay by Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews, C. Gardner Sullivan, starring Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray, Arnold Lucy, and Ben Alexander. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1930 for its producer Carl Laemmle Jr., the Academy Award for Directing for Lewis Milestone, and the Academy Award for Outstanding Production. It was the first all-talking non-musical film to win the Best Picture Oscar. It was adapted again in 1979 by Delbert Mann, this time as a television film starring Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine.