Of Mice and Men.

STEINBECK, John.

Item Number: 28046

New York: Covici-Friede, 1937.

First edition, first issue, with the words “and only moved because the heavy hands were pendula” printed as lines 20 and 21 on page 9, and bullet between the eights on page 88. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by John Steinbeck on the front free endpaper. Fine in an excellent dust jacket with some light rubbing to the extremities.

The author 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).