The Death Ship: The Story of an American Sailor

$500 · Offered by Book Collector Inc

Author: B Traven, (1882?-1969) Year: 1934 Publisher: Alfred A Knopf Place: New York Description: 372 pages. Octavo (8" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's black cloth with gilt lettering and pictorial ship to spine and blind-stamped ship to cover with red head page ends and deckle fore-edge in original jacket. First American edition. The first English language edition was published by Chatto Windus several months before this Knopf appearance, but his is considered the preferred edition as it is Traven's own translation and contains his revisions. The Death Ship (German title: Das Totenschiff ) is a novel by the pseudonymous author known as B. Traven. Originally published in German in 1926, and in English in 1934, it was Traven's first major success and is still the author's second best known work after The Treasure of the Sierra Madre . Owing to its scathing criticism of bureaucratic authority, nationalism, and abusive labor practices, it is often described as an anarchist novel. Set just after World War I, The Death Ship describes the predicament of merchant seamen who lack documentation of citizenship and cannot find legal residence or employment in any nation. The narrator is Gerard Gales, a US sailor who claims to be from New Orleans, and who is stranded in Antwerp without passport or working papers. Unable to prove his identity or his eligibility for employment, Gales is repeatedly arrested and deported from one country to the next, by government officials who do not

• Binding: Hardcover

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