“THE SPELL OF MOUNTAIN AND PRAIRIE”

STEGNER, Wallace. The Big Rock Candy Mountain. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, (1943). Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket. $1100.

First edition of Stegner’s popular semiautobiographical novel.

Praised for its "many-faceted and intensely human characters… [and] full of languid echoes," Big Rock Candy Mountain was one of Stegner's most famous works, reflecting a childhood in which his family was forever shuttled across the West by a father "pursuing the dream of an easy life that was always just out of reach." Stegner writes, wrote one critic, with the authority of one who "has felt the spell of mountain and prairie, of drought, flood and blizzard" … of hairbreadth escapes which give us the feel of frontier life" (New York Times). Owner inscription.

Faint edge-wear to near-fine book; some chipping, closed tears, tape repair to scarce, very good dust jacket.