Paths of Glory.

COBB, Humphrey [Kirk Douglas].

$2,500.00

Item Number: 89922

New York: The Viking Press, 1935.

First edition of the author’s first and only book, the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s classic film, starring Kirk Douglas. Octavo, original cloth. Signed by both Humphrey Cobb and actor Kirk Douglas. Near fine in a very good dust jacket.

Paths of Glory explores the perilous complications involved in what nations demand of their soldiers in wartime. Humphrey Cobb's protagonists are Frenchmen during the First World War whose nightmare in the trenches takes a new and terrible turn when they are ordered to assault a German position deemed all but invulnerable. When the attack fails, an inquiry into allegations of cowardice indicts a small handful of lower-ranked scapegoats whose trial exposes the farce of ordering ordinary men to risk their lives in an impossible cause. It is a chilling portrait of injustice, this novel offers insight into the tragedies of war in any age. Made into the 1957 film directed by Stanley Kubrick starring Kirk Douglas.