Heaven’s My Destination.

"There's no greater pleasure than to talk over the big things with a believer": First Edition of Thornton Wilder's Heaven's My Destination; With an Autographed Postcard from WIlder

Heaven’s My Destination.

WILDER, Thornton.

$400.00

Item Number: 140196

New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1935.

First edition of this comedic novel about a modern-day Don Quixote. Octavo, original cloth. With an autographed postcard from Thornton Wilder laid in. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket art by Haberstock.

"In 1930, after the publication of his third novel, The Woman of Andros, Wilder had established himself as a prominent American author. However, Michael Gold, critic with The New Republic, published a scathing review [which] culminated in a literary call to arms: 'Let Mr. Wilder write a book about modern America. We predict it will reveal all his fundamental silliness and superficiality.' Whether Heaven's My Destination is a direct response to this challenge is unknown. However, with the intention of demonstrating the struggle of the American mind, 'forever alternating between ethical puritan aspiration and the busy realist vainglory,' Wilder offered his first complete survey of modern American society" (Matthew Angelo, Thornton Wilder Society). Critic Edmund Wilson called the novel, Wilder's "finest to date." Perhaps most notably, Heaven's My Destination shows Wilder exploring the minimalist, action-based style he would later put to great effect in "Our Town."

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