John Steinbeck

First edition of the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning novel that made Steinbeck a household name.

• John Steinbeck (American).
• New York: The Viking Press, 1939.
• 620 pages.
• Illustrated bookplate of Marjorie E. M. Grant tipped onto verso of front flyleaf.
• Original unclipped ($2.75) color pictorial dust jacket illustrated by Elmer Hader.
• Endpapers with illustration of the Battle Hymn of the Republic in yellow and orange.
• Bound in original tan buckram binding with brown titles and line art, yellow topstain.

Grapes of Wrath has been generations of students’ introduction to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck’s extensive use of symbolism and Biblical motifs also makes it an excellent exercise in literary criticism for both high schoolers and hardcore academics, all pulled together with exceptionally lyrical prose. Grapes of Wrath was an immediate hit, and stayed atop bestseller lists for the majority of 1939. But it was not always beloved: the novel was a lighting rod for Steinbeck, both professionally and personally. His portrayal of the difficult lives of migrant workers and the corruption of the agriculture business earned him “constant vilification” from powerful farmers’ groups, and the book was banned (and even occasionally burned) in a variety of communities (Demott). In his diaries, Steinbeck lamented how the novel’s popularity “got really out of hand, became a public hysteria,” leading to the idea that he was, himself, “public domain” (Demott). This first edition, with its hyperbolic but prescient dust jacket editorial copy (”Perhaps Grapes of Wrath is the greatest modern American novel...the greatest single creative work this country has ever produced”), captures the tipping point of Steinbeck’s career.

Robert Demott, John Steinbeck: Working Days.

Adrian H. Goldstone and John R. Payne, John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue, item A12a.