BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 28 “I’ll Be Ever’where—Wherever You Look. Wherever They’s A Fight So Hungry People Can Eat, I’ll Be There” 30STEINBECK, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York, 1939. Octavo, original pictorial beige cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $28,500 First edition, first issue, of Steinbeck’s most important novel, winner of the 1940 Pulitzer Prize. Grapes of Wrath “reads as if it had been composed in a flash, ripped off the typewriter and delivered to the public as an ultimatum… Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths of his heart with a sincerity seldom equaled” (Peter Monro Jack). “The Grapes of Wrath is the kind of art that’s poured out of a crucible in which are mingled pity and indignation… Its power and importance do not lie in its political insight but in its intense humanity… [It] is the American novel of the season, probably the year, possibly the decade” (Clifton Fadiman). Slight discoloration to cloth along spine joints, much less than typical; jacket bright and beautiful with only faintest toning along top margin. A stunning copy, most rare in this condition. “The Foundation For Later Artistic Greatness” 31STEINBECK, John. To a God Unknown. New York, 1935. Octavo, green cloth, dust jacket, custom box. $10,500 First edition, exceptionally rare first issue of Steinbeck’s first California novel, one of only 598 first issue copies bound and sold, his third published novel, in the rarely found original dust jacket. When Steinbeck received a small shipment of the novels from his publisher on September 12, 1933, he wrote Ballou: “‘The books came this morning and I like them immensely. Thank you for doing such a fine job’… Steinbeck labored longer on To a God Unknown than on any other book… Because he may have learned more about crafting long fiction from it than from anything else he worked on during that period, this book laid the foundation for later artistic greatness” (DeMott, Introduction, To a God Unknown). Interior fine, cloth with mild toning, faint ghosting from dust jacket (as often); dust jacket with mild wear to corners and spine ends, light toning to spine and rear panel. An extremely good copy.
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