Weidman, Jerome (1913-1998 — Sam. First Edition of the Published Broadside

Washington, DC: The Black Sun Press, 1945. Letterpress on paper. 40 x 30.52cm. Marginal tears. As published in Portfolio One , edited by Caresse Crosby.. Jerome Weidman, the prolific and popular novelist who wrote ''I Can Get It for You Wholesale'' and also won a Pulitzer Prize as the author (with George Abbott) of the Broadway musical ''Fiorello!,'' died Oct. 6,1998 at his home in Manhattan. He was 85. In his two prosperous careers as novelist and playwright, Mr. Weidman often wrote about the rough underside of business and politics -- and daily life -- in New York, the city in which he was born. His first novel, ''I Can Get It for You Wholesale,'' published in 1937 when he was 24, teemed with the life in Manhattan's garment center, telling about the rise of the ragingly ambitious Harry Bogen. Along with the title character in Budd Schulberg's ''What Makes Sammy Run?,'' Harry became an archetypal figure in American literature: the abrasive young man who would do anything to get ahead. Mr. Weidman wrote 22 novels, many volumes of short stories, several plays and screenplays and, in 1986, a memoir, ''Praying for Rain.'' ''Wholesale'' was a striking debut. The reviewer in The New York Times said that the author ''knows his subject about as well as Ernest Hemingway knew the Paris cafes, James M. Cain the postman who always rang twice, John O'Hara the life and death of Julian English.''. .