LEWIS, Sinclair.

£1,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Main Street. First edition, inscribed by the author to his fellow writer on the front free endpaper, "To A.S. Le Vino, who knew him and her, Sinclair Lewis" - the inscription presumably referring to the novel's characters. Albert S. Le Vino (1878-1947) wrote The Treasure of the Sea (1918), Stranger Than Fiction (1921), and A Man from Wyoming (1930). "Lewis attained fame with the publication of Main Street (1920). The book's protagonist, Carol Kennicott, a quixotic young woman determined to adopt a small prairie town and bring culture to it, moves to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, a town not unlike Sauk Centre, and is dismayed by the small-minded people who live there... The novel was not only a best-seller, but a cultural phenomenon" (ANB).Provenance: the collection of Steve Forbes, chairman of Forbes Magazine and presidential candidate in the 1996 and 2000 US elections.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.