American Literature

John Steinbeck

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First edition</a>, first printing of the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning novel that made <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Steinbeck&amp;pfilters.dateRange=upcoming" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Steinbeck</a> a household name.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;The Viking Press,&nbsp;(1939).</li><li>620 pages.</li><li>Original tan buckram binding with brown titles and line art, in original unclipped ($2.75) color pictorial dust jacket illustrated by Elmer Hader, yellow topstain, endpapers with illustration of the Battle Hymn of the Republic in yellow and orange.</li></ul> "They was on'y one thing to do – ever – an' we done it." 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. 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.

Grapes Of Wrath First Edition

Joel Chandler Harris

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first issue of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Uncle%20Remus%3A%20His%20Songs%20and%20Sayings&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings</a> by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Joel%20Chandler%20Harris&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joel Chandler Harris</a>.<ul><li>Joel Chandler Harris (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;D. Appleton,&nbsp;1881. </li><li>231, [1], [8] pages.&nbsp;</li><li>Illustrated by Frederick Church and James Moser. Publisher's catalogue at rear</li><li>With "presumptive" misspelled on p. 9, bottom line, and without ads for this title in rear.</li><li>Original green cloth stamped in gold and black, housed in custom quarter green goatskin clamshell box.</li></ul> First edition of the first extensive printed record of the tales of Brer Rabbit and other oral traditions kept by enslaved African Americans before emancipation. "If any collection evokes the hushed-up paradoxes of African American folklore, it is Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories." – Gates &amp; Tatar Georgia-born white journalist Harris sought to document the cultural history of African Americans in his Uncle Remus project, and with his success "a vibrant storytelling culture for adults began its long migration from campfires and slave cabins into the nursery" (Gates &amp; Tatar). Harris painted the plantation life of enslaved people as idyllic, and his collection has depicted, created, and circulated racist stereotypes of African Americans. As complicated as such a legacy is, the collection also acts as a printed record of supreme importance for African-American oral traditions.

Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings First Edition

Stephen Crane

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first issue of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Stephen%20Crane&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stephen Crane</a>'s <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=The%20Red%20Badge%20of%20Courage&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Red Badge of Courage</a>.<ul><li>Stephen Crane (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;D. Appleton and Company,&nbsp;1895.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in the original cream cloth stamped in black, red, and gilt, in a dustjacket, housed in a red quarter morocco box.</li></ul> Crane's classic tale of fear, shame, bravery, and redemption has captivated generations of readers with its naturalistic, impressionistic literary style, groundbreaking for its time. A contemporary review stated, "At times the description is so vivid as to be almost suffocating. The reader is right down in the midst of it…. This is war from a new point of view." While ostensibly a book about the Civil War, the novel delves far more into the internal struggles of its protagonist, Henry Fleming, as opposed to graphic battle scenes, an approach which influenced many subsequent authors, and it has never gone out of print. The Red Badge of Courage initially appeared as a serialization in the Philadelphia Press in December 1894, and thence to nearly 800 newspapers and periodicals nationwide, establishing the young 24-year-old author as a fresh new cultural celebrity. Crane's original manuscript totaled 55,000 words, but in order to accommodate spatial requirements, only 18,000 words were permitted for the serial version, severely limiting the story's intended breadth and scope. For this, the first book-length printing of the novel, published in 1895, only 5,000 words were excised, but this still resulted in the removal of the entire twelfth chapter and significant sections of several others. While a 1982 version based on Crane's complete manuscript purported to be the definitive version of the book, other scholars have posited that it was Crane himself who made the edits in 1895, thus making the first edition the one closest to his final vision for the novel (Lentz, Private Fleming at Chancellorsville: The Red Badge of Courage and the Civil War, 2006).

The Red Badge of Courage First Edition

Walt Whitman

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first issue of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=walt%20whitman&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Walt Whitman</a>'s Leaves of Grass.<ul><li>Walt Whitman (American).</li><li>New York, 1855.</li><li>Small folio.</li><li>xii, [13]–95 pages.&nbsp;</li><li>Engraved frontispiece portrait of Whitman by Samuel Hollyer after a photograph, printed on thick paper.</li><li>Bound in the original green cloth, boards with blind-stamped floral decorations, title and triple-fillet border gilt, spine with title and floral ornaments gilt, marble endpapers, all edges gilt, housed in a custom half morocco folding case.</li></ul> “He was and is the poet and prophet of democracy, and the intoxication of his immense affirmative, the fervor of his ‘barbaric yawp,’ are so powerful that the echo of his crude yet rhythmic song rings forever in the American air” (Grolier One Hundred). The self-published&nbsp;Leaves was at least partially personally&nbsp;type-set by the author on a small handpress in Brooklyn. The portrait of Whitman is here in superior condition, without the foxing often encountered. This copy bears the printed copyright statement on the verso of the title page and has the first version of line 2 of page 49 (“And the night is for you and me and all”) identified by Schmidgall in his article, “1855: a Stop-Press Revision.” Of the original 795 copies, only 337 were issued in this first binding with extensive gilt stamping, marbled end-sheets, and gilt edges (in the second binding only the title was gilt, and plain yellow end-sheets were used).

Leaves of Grass First Edition

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings.<ul><li>Joel Chandler Harris (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;D. Appleton,&nbsp;1881.</li><li>231 pages.</li><li>Illustrated by Frederick Church and James Moser.</li><li>With "presumptive" misspelled on page 9, bottom line, and without ads for this title in rear.</li><li>Bound in the original mustard cloth stamped in gold and black, in a custom slipcase.</li></ul> "The first large-scale effort to collect African American lore" (Gates &amp; Tatar) First issue of the first extensive printed record of the tales of Brer Rabbit and other oral traditions kept by enslaved African Americans before emancipation, in the scarce yellow binding. "If any collection evokes the hushed-up paradoxes of African American folklore, it is Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories." – Gates &amp; Tatar Georgia-born white journalist Harris sought to document the cultural history of African Americans in his Uncle Remus project, and with his success "a vibrant storytelling culture for adults began its long migration from campfires and slave cabins into the nursery" (Gates &amp; Tatar). Harris painted the plantation life of enslaved people as idyllic, and his collection has depicted, created, and circulated racist stereotypes of African Americans. As complicated as such a legacy is, the collection also acts as a printed record of supreme importance for African-American oral traditions. Robert Bone argues that "[t]o neglect the Brer Rabbit tales because a white man was the first to write them down is to betray the black man's folk tradition" (quoted in Gates and Tatar). In the recent publication of the Annotated African American Folktales, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar, the folklore recorded by Harris is given a full chapter and its complex history discussed. "In my house, growing up in Piedmont, West Virginia, we collected Mother Goose and Joel Chandler Harris," Gates told The New York Times, "My father used to tell Brer Rabbit stories to my brother and me all the time." African American authors continue to draw from this tradition to create art true to their own voices, from Charles Chesnutt's forays into mythic storytelling, to Ralph Ellison's ambiguous Ulysses-Brer Rabbit trickster imagery, to Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, to Jerry Pinkney's visual tours de force.

Uncle Remus: His Songs And Sayings

Mark Twain

A single leaf from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's work The Gilded Age.<ul><li>Single manuscript leaf, taken from a set.</li><li>Written in Mark Twain's hand.</li><li>This page is from chapter 34.</li><li>Removed from binding.</li><li>Embossed stamp at top left.</li></ul> Written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age was hatched over the dinner table when Clemens and Warner were challenged by their wives to write a work that would be better than those they were busy complaining about. Clemens wrote the first eleven chapters, based on members of his family including his father and mother, while Warner wrote the next twelve chapters, purely fictionally. The remaining chapters were generally written by one or the other, while the resolution was written in tandem.

The Gilded Age Manuscript Leaf

Harriet Beecher Stowe

First edition, first issue of Beecher Stowe's seminal text, signed by her inspiration for Uncle Tom, Rev. Josiah Henson.<ul><li>Harriet Beecher Stowe (American).</li><li>Boston:&nbsp;John P. Jewett &amp; Company,&nbsp;1852.</li><li>[iii]-x, [13]-312; 322 pages.</li><li>Duodecimo. </li><li>Extra-illustrated with an autograph signature by Rev. Josiah Henson, Stowe’s inspiration for Uncle Tom, in vol. 1, on The Christian Age letterhead and dated by the recipient 1876 and with an autograph letter tipped in.</li><li>Inscribed by Stowe in vol. 2, to her publisher James Osgood.</li><li>Vol. 1 with original cloth gilt extra covers bound in.</li><li>Modern full green morocco gilt, red morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt.</li></ul> “In the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century America Uncle Tom's Cabin exploded like a bombshell. To those engaged in fighting slavery it appeared as an indictment of all the evils inherent in the system they opposed; to the pro-slavery forces it was a slanderous attack on 'the Southern way of life.' Whatever its weakness as a literary work -— structural looseness and excess of sentiment among them — the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the United States was greater than of any book before or since” (PMM). Published at the end of March 1852, 5000 copies of the first issue were published, with a second issue of an additional 5000 copies published on the first of April. By the middle of the month, both had been exhausted, with the publisher writing in the National Era: "Three paper mills are constantly at work, manufacturing the paper, and three power presses are working twenty-four hours per day, in printing it, and more than one hundred book-binders are incessantly plying their trade to bind them, and still it has been impossible, as yet, to supply the demand." By mid-October, 120,000 copies had been sold. The Stowe autograph letter, signed, inserted into this set is to her publisher James Osgood concerning an illustrated edition published by Houghton, Osgood, and Co. in 1878, reading in part: “Would it be any injury to delay the issuing of the book to the 13th of Jany — the reason is that Thursday I sail from Florida and should be out of the way of the noise of it. I am sick and tired of the fuss of the press that I want to escape it altogether. — There are three corrections that must be made in the plate proofs and I must trust you to see them done immediately ...”.

American Literature

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John Steinbeck

Joel Chandler Harris

Stephen Crane

Walt Whitman

Joel Chandler Harris

Mark Twain

Harriet Beecher Stowe