Of Mice and Men.

STEINBECK, John.

$17,500.00

Item Number: 147302

New York: Covici-Friede, 1937.

First edition, first issue with the word “pendula” present on page 9 and the dot between the 8’s on p. 88 of Steinbeck’s “marvelous picture of the tragedy of loneliness” (Eleanor Roosevelt). Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Sara Hull Krahn John Steinbeck.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a touch of wear. An exceptional example, most rare and desirable signed and inscribed.

John Steinbeck began Of Mice and Men as a children’s story. “Although the finished novelette does not seem appropriate for children—that intention was obviously abandoned—the simplicity of its style and the clarity and precision of its imagery may well have been prompted by this original purpose… ” (Benson, 326). The result is “a sophisticated and artful rendering of the basic conflict between two worlds: between an idealized landscape and the real world with its pain and anguish” (Literary History of the American West). "A thriller, a gripping tale . . . that you will not set down until it is finished. Steinbeck has touched the quick" (The New York Times).