MALAMUD, Bernard. Idiots First.

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1963.

8vo.; in black cloth with silver titles over board with printed title; with dust-jacket. Jacket and cloth rubbed at edges, minor tears to spine; a very good copy.

First edition, first printing. Inscribed by Malamud on free front endpapers: “For Mama and Gino / With love / Bern”.

Malamud’s second story collection was a finalist for the 1964 National Book Award for Fiction. The title story describes a man’s attempts to insure security for his disabled son, an experience which may have been close to Malamud given that his brother Eugene (who some of these copies are inscribed to) suffered from acute mental illness.