<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

A typescript of 25 love poems written to John Steinbeck's wife Gwendolyn Conger Steinbeck.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>Transcribed by Gwendolyn Conger Steinbeck.</li><li>Bound with a cover Typed Letter Signed, 10/30/69, from Shirley McCurry's secretarial service, to Burgess Meredith, saying: "Dear Mr. Meredith, Gwyn [Steinbeck] asked that we forward the enclosed poems to you. She will send the material to fill in the blanks as soon as she is able to decipher it ... "</li></ul> These are Gwyn's own transcriptions of the love poems written to her by Steinbeck, sent to their good friend Burgess Meredith. It is not clear whether the manuscripts have survived, although Jackson Benson (p. 57) states of the little poetry which Steinbeck wrote, "there is a series of love poems written to his second wife, Gwyn, which has also survived."

Typescript of 25 Love Poems

A first edition copy of The Grapes of Wrath.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;The Viking Press,&nbsp;1939.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in tan cloth, decoratively stamped in brown on cover and spine, with unclipped dust jacket.</li></ul> The tale of the Joad family as they travel across the country from Oklahoma to California in the midst of the Great Depression is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. It is Steinbeck's masterpiece. The Grapes of Wrath won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer and was central in the awarding of Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

The Grapes of Wrath

First edition of John Steinbeck's tale of post-World War, a beautiful copy in the scarce original dust jacket. 	<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>Illustrated by Ruth Gannett (American).</li><li>New York: Covici Friede Publishers, [1935].</li><li>318 pages.</li><li>Illustrated throughout in black and white.</li><li>Original unclipped ($2.50) pictorial dust jacket in blue and black.</li><li>Bound in original tan cloth binding with blue spine lettering, blue topstain, fore-edge machine deckle.</li><li>Housed in custom blue leather-backed clamshell box.</li></ul> The lighthearted tone of Tortilla Flat lifted the spirits of Americans during the Great Depression, for whom “reading and the movies were escape... escape from grinding poverty, escape from worrying about how to pay the rent, escape from worrying about how to find a job” (San Jose). Danny and his round table of friends are rarely concerned with any of those issues as they meander through life in Monterey, undeniably poor, but not experiencing the tragedy of poverty in the same way as many of Steinbeck’s later characters. Steinbeck even drew joy from writing the work: “it is light and I think amusing... I don’t care whether it amounts to anything. I am enjoying it and I need something to help me over this last ditch” (Steinbeck and Wallsten).Tortilla Flat did, of course, amount to something, earning the California Commonwealth Club’s Gold Medal and a mention in the justification for Steinbeck’s 1962 Nobel Prize. It was also made into a 1942 film starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr, and was one of the top box office grossers of the year.This first edition is a crystallization of the beginning of Steinbeck’s career, before his works were required reading in classrooms across America. With Ruth Gannett’s illustrations nestled throughout the text,Tortilla Flat is a refreshingly light title in a broad oeuvre.

Tortilla Flat

A signed limited first edition, this is the scarce "lettered" issue that was meant for private distribution to friends.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>New York: Covici Friede, 1937.</li><li>Owner bookplate tipped onto free endpaper purportedly belonging to a Covici Friede associate.&nbsp;</li><li>Housed in the publisher's slip case with the limitation letter on the spine of the case.</li></ul> In addition to being lettered instead of numbered, this issue is printed on Marais handmade paper (watermarked) while the numbered copies are on La Garde paper. The limited edition originally sold for $10.00—a large sum for the time, but sold out. The story features young Jody Tiflin and his life on his father's northern California ranch. The first edition has no illustrations; an illustrated expanded edition came out in 1945.

Red Pony

A first edition, first printing copy of Steinbeck's&nbsp;The Grapes of Wrath.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>New York: Viking Press, 1939.</li><li>619 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Publisher's beige cloth, decoration to boards and titles to spine in brown, pictorial endpapers, and pictorial dust jacket, "FIRST EDITION" on the front flap and with the $2.75 price extant.</li></ul> Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their home by drought, economic hardship and changes in financial and agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies," they sought jobs, land, dignity and a future. Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1940 for this novel.

A first edition, first issue copy of Cup of Gold.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Robert M. McBride,&nbsp;1929.</li><li>269 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in original yellow cloth, titled in black on front cover and spine, with pictorial dust jacket designed by Mahlon Blaine (with $2.50 price present), tan cloth slipcase.</li></ul> The future Nobel laureate's elusive first book, published when he was 27 years old. One of 1,537 copies (the publisher printed 2,476 copies, 939 of which were remaindered as unbound sheets). This was Steinbeck's fourth attempt at a novel and was rewritten six times from an unpublished story titled "A Lady in Infra-Red," which he composed while at Stanford.

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