The Little Ark by Jan De Hartog (Illustrated by Joseph Low) - 1953

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953. First edition. Hardcover, Cloth Covered Boards. Original, Good Condition. Joseph Low.
Jan de Hartog (April 22, 1914 - September 22, 2002) was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker. Hartog was born to a Dutch Calvinist Minister and professor of theology, Arnold Hendrik, and his wife, Lucretia de Hartog (who herself was a lecturer in medieval mysticism), in 1914. He was raised in the city of Haarlem, the Netherlands. Jan and his wife Marjorie took a 90-foot Dutch ship (called The Rival) and transformed it into a houseboat which they made their home. During the severe floods in the Netherlands of 1953, The Rival was transformed into a floating hospital, which de Hartog wrote about in The Little Ark. In the late 50s the de Hartogs decided to take The Rival to the USA, on the deck of a freighter. They had difficulty locating a dock with cranes large enough to lift the houseboat from the freighter, but eventually made for Houston, Texas. They decided they liked it there, and stayed. Jan de Hartog wrote many of his plays, books, and magazine articles in Dutch. Some of his plays and books were adapted as movies.
Joseph Charles Low (August 11, 1911 - February 12, 2007) was an American artist and children's book illustrator. He made cover illustrations for The New Yorker between 1940 and 1980.
213pp. No DJ, pages rough cut, no inscriptions or markings, clean throughout.

[see image scan of actual book]