Berlin: Malek Verlag, (1931).  

 

Small thick octavo, 618 pages. Special gold edition for “Auflage 125.000”.  First edition thus. This special edition for the 100,000-125,000th copies of this classic tale of oil scandal. Issued in 1927 in the US under the title, Oil!, and translated into German by Hermynia Zur Muhlen in the same year, this edition, with a dust jacket design by Dadaist John Heartfield was specially issued in 1931, on the occasion of  printing more than 100,00 copies. Heartfield, who used photo-collage and typography as an Anti-Fascist political weapon, created a series of dust jacket designs for Malik Verlag, including a number of designs for works by Sinclair. The subjects of the novel - oil, greed, and scandal - are of course timely ones, and the book is currently being made into a film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, for release in 2007 under the title, There Will Be Blood. Some light foxing to edges of  text block, and a bit  of wear to the tip of the silver silk ribbon bookmark, other wise very good in publisher’s pale green printed cloth. The striking Heartfield-designed dust jacket, printed in black and gold, has a small triangular chip out of one side of the spine foot, and some general crinkles around the edges, otherwise bright and very good.

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