[Einstein, Albert]

Joint Distribution Committee of the American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers [Rosenbach Company]. Going, going, gone! Rare Book Auction, Hotel Plaza, New York, December 8, 1938. New York: Bradford Press for the Publisher's Printing Company, [1938]



8vo (9 1/8 x 6 in.; 232 x 152 mm). Preface signed ("A. Einstein"), forward signed ("Tomas Mann"). Printed wrappers, cover illustration by Rockwell Kent, in a red half-morocco slip-case, gilt-stamped title on spine.

A fund-raising auction organized by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, the famed antiquarian bookseller, on behalf of persecuted peoples in Europe just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, and signed by the two leading German exiles living in the United States. Each contributed manuscripts to the auction chaired by Dr. Rosenbach to benefit other refugees.

Rosenbach secured donations from luminaries such as Irving Berlin, Robert Frost, and Louis Brandeis. Talkative celebrity auctioneers slowed the auction, leaving many lots unsold and necessitating a later private sale. Despite the Depression, the event raised $35,000 for the Joint Distribution Committee and the Committee for Christian Refugees.