"THE BOOK SANG OUT TO ME LIKE A RADIO" (BOB DYLAN): FIRST EDITION OF WOODY GUTHRIE'S BOUND FOR GLORY

GUTHRIE, Woody. Bound for Glory. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1943. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. $3800.

First edition of the legendary folk singer's autobiographical account of his Dust Bowl years, the first and only book he published in his lifetime, a handsome copy in scarce first-issue dust jacket.

"Woody Guthrie inspired a generation of folksingers in the 1950s and 1960s who used music to comment on their society and culture with the idea of changing it… Guthrie's anger at the injustices of American society was combined with a strong and abiding patriotism that he expressed eloquently in "Pastures of Plenty"—if necessary he would defend this land 'with my life' because 'these pastures of plenty must always be free" (ANB). When a young Bob Dylan was lent a copy of Bound for Glory, he would recall reading "it from cover to cover like a hurricane, totally focused on every word, and the book sang out to me like a radio" (Dylan, Chronicles). In the New York Times Orville Prescott wrote that Guthrie's autobiographical Bound for Glory had "more triple-distilled essence of pure individual personality in it than any [book] in years" and critics further praised his book as "an eloquent piece, wild as a train whistle in the mountains, a scrumptious picture of fighting, carousing, singing, laughing migratory America (Books of the Century, 135). Basis for the Oscar-winning 1977 film of the same name. First edition, illustrated with frontispiece portrait and Guthrie's own sketches. In original first issue dust jacket with $3.00 price on front flap.

Book fine; slight edge-wear, tiny bit of expert archival repair to colorful extremely good dust jacket.