MALAMUD, Bernard. Rembrandt’s Hat.

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973.

8vo.; in white cloth over burgundy boards; with dust-jacket. Two minor tears to front upper edge of jacket; otherwise a fine copy.

First edition, second printing. Inscribed by Malamud on free front endpapers: “To Mama – With love / Bern / Bennington 1973”.

A contemporary review in The New York Times of Malamud’s third story collection states that “Each [story] is touched ... by a wistful and ironic humor and beautifully bold fantasy.... What Malamud masterfully brings out in each story is the concrete demand, the absorbing reality, of the impossible wish”.