The Grapes of Wrath. by STEINBECK, John - 1939

New York: The Viking Press,, 1939. Octavo. Original buff cloth, titles to spine and pictorial design to boards in dark brown, endpapers decorated with the sheet music for Battle Hymn of the Republic, top edge yellow. With the dust jacket. Jacket spine only slightly toned, a few nicks and chips, dark mottling to top edge of book block. A very good copy with the jacket in superior condition. First edition, first printing, of Steinbeck's masterpiece and one of the great American novels of the 20th century. The fine jacket design is by Elmer Hader, known primarily as a children's book illustrator (joint winner with his wife, Berta Hoerner Hader, of the Caldecott Medal in 1948 for The Big Snow): apparently Steinbeck was so taken with their book Billy Butter (1936) that he requested that Elmer Hader design the cover for The Grapes of Wrath; the illustrator going on to work on two other Steinbeck books, East of Eden (1952) and The Winter of Our Discontent (1961). Goldstone & Payne A12.