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.
Sea of Cortez
New York: The Viking Press, 1941. Item #06589
Steinbeck and Ricketts - Science, Friendship, and the Gulf of California
First Edition of Sea of Cortez
STEINBECK, John Steinbeck. Ricketts, Edward F. Sea of Cortez. A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research. New York: The Viking Press, 1941.
First edition, first printing. Octavo (9 1/4 x 6 inches; 235 x 152 mm.). x, 598 pp. Forty pages of inserted plates, many in color.
Publisher’s green linen over boards, front cover and spine lettered in silver, map endpapers printed in blue, top edge stained orange. Neat ink names on front paste-down. In the original color printed dust jacket, extremities a little rubbed, with a 3/4-inch closed tear to lower front panel. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket.
An important and unusual work in the Steinbeck canon, Sea of Cortez documents the 1940 marine expedition undertaken by Steinbeck and his close friend and collaborator Edward F. Ricketts.
Blending scientific observation with philosophical reflection and travel narrative, the book is as much a meditation on ecology and human interconnectedness as it is a record of biological collecting along the Gulf of California.
The work is notable for its hybrid structure, combining a detailed scientific catalogue with Steinbeck’s narrative journal - later distilled by Steinbeck into The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951).
Copies of the original 1941 edition, particularly in unrestored dust jacket, are increasingly difficult to locate in collectible condition.
A highly desirable Steinbeck first, representing one of the most intellectually ambitious collaborations of his career.
Goldstone & Payne A14a.
Price: $2,500.00