“THE PATHS OF GLORY LEAD BUT TO THE GRAVE”

COBB, Humphrey. Paths of Glory. New York: Viking, 1935. Octavo, original gilt-stamped blue and red cloth, original dust jacket. $750.

First edition of the author’s first and only book, the basis for Kubrick’s classic film.

Humphrey Cobb volunteered to serve in a Canadian regiment in 1916 well before the United States entered World War I. Paths of Glory is his powerful first and only novel, about French soldiers wrongly court-martialed for cowardice. Its title derives from the Thomas Gray poem, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." In 1957, the novel was adapted to film, with a screenplay by Calder Willingham, crime novelist Jim Thompson and director Stanley Kubrick. Martin Scorsese praised the classic war movie's early influence on his own work, calling it a film that "was so honest it was shocking." First-state dust jacket, without reviews on rear panel. Bookseller ticket.

Book with occasional faint marginal foxing, light rubbing and toning to cloth extremities, and small smudge to rear board, dust jacket with light wear and toning to extremities. An extremely good copy.