John. The Grapes of Wrath.

by STEINBECK

£15,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

Iconic dust jacket STEINBECK, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking. 1939. 8vo. Original tan pictorial cloth with dust wrapper displaying "$2.75" and "First edition", endpapers with reproduction of the Battle Hymn of the Republic; pp. 619; dust jacket with minimal wear to the corners, a little toning to edges, a couple of spots of browning, generally very good indeed . First edition. Steinbeck's masterpiece and literature's lasting testament to the Great Depression, it won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize and was singled-out as a "great work…[an] epic chronicle" in his citation for the Nobel Prize in 1962. This book is one of the great American novels, the travails of Tom Joad and his family struggling through the Depression in the Dust Bowl having become legendary. The book has inspired films, plays, operas and popular music but nothing compares to the stripped back beauty of Steinbeck's prose; "To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth". Copies in this condition are extremely hard to find. The iconic jacket design is by the children's illustrator Elmer Hader. His collaboration was specifically requested by Steinbeck who loved his work in the 1936 book Billy Butter , and Hader went on to design later books such as East of Eden . Goldstone Payne A12a. SKU: 2120571

• Binding: Hardcover

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