I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Long Valley, The
New York: The Viking Press, 1938. Item #06573
Steinbeck’s Salinas Stories - A Cornerstone Collection
First Edition in Exceptional Condition
STEINBECK, John. The Long Valley. New York: The Viking Press, 1938.
First edition. Octavo (8 x 5 inches; 203 x 127 mm.). [1–8], 9–303, [1, blank] pp.
Publisher’s quarter light tan buckram over orange cloth boards, spine lettered in red, top edge stained red. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
A superb copy of The Long Valley, an important early collection by John Steinbeck that brings together some of his finest short fiction, much of it set in the Salinas Valley of California. The volume includes such notable stories as The Chrysanthemums, The White Quail, and The Red Pony (in episodic form), each reflecting Steinbeck’s deep engagement with landscape, isolation, and the emotional lives of ordinary people.
Published just one year before The Grapes of Wrath, this collection marks a crucial moment in Steinbeck’s development, demonstrating his growing command of narrative form and thematic depth.
The stories reveal, in concentrated form, many of the concerns that would define his major novels - loneliness, the fragility of dreams, and the tension between human aspiration and environmental constraint.
The first edition is increasingly difficult to obtain in such fresh condition, particularly with the dust jacket intact and unrestored.
A cornerstone Steinbeck title, here preserved in an unusually fine state—an essential addition to any serious collection of twentieth-century American literature.
Goldstone & Payne A11a.
Price: $3,500.00