Hiroshima.

with original letter

First book edition, first printing, originally published in the New Yorker in the same year. Loosely inserted is an autograph letter signed from Hersey: 'Dear Fred Fussell: I'm glad you alert your students to the hazards of nuclear war, and I hope that, beyond their understanding the precautions they might take, it may arm some of them to act as citizens to try to make sure we never have such a war. Sincerely, John Hersey. July 27, '80'.

Hiroshima was of the most significant pieces of journalism to emerge from the Second World War, and one of the first examples of the 'New Journalism'. Reporting from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was heavily managed by the US government, and most Americans and Europeans had little understanding of the effects of the atomic bombs. The New Yorker therefore commissioned war correspondent John Hersey (1914-1993) to travel to Japan - still difficult under military occupation - and interview survivors. 'He stayed for just three weeks, wrote nothing on-site and didn't submit anything to MacArthur's office as he should have done, instead smuggling his notes back home in June' (Hersey, John Hersey's Hiroshima is Still Essential Reading, Esquire, April 2021).

The stories of six individuals were chosen for the piece, and readers were not spared the horrifying details. This was the first time that victims had spoken for themselves in the international press, and Hersey's 'reporting was so meticulous, his sentences and paragraphs were so clear, calm and restrained, that the horror of the story he had to tell came through all the more chillingly' (Hertzberg, New Yorker obituary, March 1993).

'The impact of this New Yorker was extraordinary. The edition sold out 300,000 copies within hours of publication, inspiring a storm of commentary across the US, and abroad... Albert Einstein, an outspoken opponent of the bomb, who tried to buy a thousand copies of the New Yorker to send to fellow scientists, had to settle for a facsimile version' (McCrum, 'The 100 best Non-Fiction Books', no 34, the Guardian, September 2016). The present book edition was first published two months later by Alfred A. Knopf, and has never been out of print.

First edition, with autograph letter from the author loosely inserted; 8vo; light ink stamp of Central Book Shop, Mexico City to the rear free endpaper, contents very faintly toned; original grey-blue cloth, titles to spine gilt and to upper board in blind, spine slightly toned, cloth lightly rubbed at extremities, a very good copy in the jacket with toning of the spine panel and edges, a few tiny chips, and some rubbing at the extremities; 118pp.