"THE MORNING STAR ALWAYS GETS WONDERFUL BRIGHT THE MINUTE BEFORE IT HAS TO GO": FIRST EDITION OF OUR TOWN

WILDER, Thornton. Our Town. A Play in Three Acts. New York: Coward McCann, (1938). Octavo, original olive green cloth with blue paper labels, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket. $3500.

First edition of Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, his "most successful and enduring work."

"Wilder preferred to place [current events] in long perspective, searching for meaning that transcends daily experience. For Wilder, this search culminated in his most successful and enduring work, Our Town, performed in 1938, when the world again was facing devastation…Wilder explained that he wanted to show 'the life of a village against the life of the stars.' His was the right message for the time. Our Town earned Wilder his second Pulitzer Prize" (ANB). Bruccoli & Clark III:367. With an autograph letter signed from an employee of the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire to a collector regarding a separate typed page, compiled by Wilder's nephew A. Tappan Wilder, that chronicles events in Wilder's career, making note of those years in which he was a resident at the MacDowell Colony.

Book clean, with some gentle toning to cloth spine and edges; dust jacket with mild toning to spine, as often. A near-fine copy with a nice provenance.