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Weil, Simone (Subject) & Gray, Francine Du Plessix (Author) : Simone Weil: Penguin Lives

Viking/Penguin Books, New York City, NY, 2001

ISBN 0297646273

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 246 pages. Book-length account on subject. One of Francine Du Plessix Gray's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Francine Du Plessix Gray's "Simone Weil". The philosopher as exemplary sufferer. "A virtuosic achievement, unique among popular treatments of Weil: A short, measured biography of a short but startlingly unmeasured and unmeasuring life" (Publishers Weekly). "Simone Weil (1909-43) displayed early the ferocious intellect that took this daughter of affluent, highly assimilated French Jews to the peak of her country's rigorous educational system, and made her an important modern philosopher. Weil remains a beacon to activists because of her passionate, intensely personal commitment to the world's oppressed and her need to directly share their suffering. This need had its neurotic aspects, and Gray's elegant biography does not gloss over Weil's lifelong anorexia, her distaste for physical contact, her peculiar brand of anti-Semitism, and the unyielding self-righteousness that led her to cut off friendships for minor offenses. The overall tone is one of sympathetic respect for an extraordinary human being unable to develop the willed blindness that enables most of us to live comfortably while others go without. An outstanding introduction to the influential thought and rivetingly conflicted life of a seminal figure in 20th-century history" (Wendy Smith). Vichy Police: "You little bitch, we'll have you thrown in jail with the whores". Simone Weil's cool and now-classic reply: "I've always wanted to know that milieu". Francine Du Plessix Gray died on January 13, 2019 at the age of 88, herself a cult "writer's writer" (rather than a mainstream one) to the very end. An absolute "must-have" title for Simone Weil and Francine Du Plessix Gray collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the title page by Francine Du Plessix Gray. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. She signed on top of the page, making her signature even more prominent. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. One of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER FRANCINE DU PLESSIX GRAY TITLE IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0297646273.

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