American Earth

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine-. First Printing of this important debut, copies of which in a dust jacket this fine are seldom seen. 8vo: x,314pp. Publisher's tan cloth, lettering and decor stamped in forest green on spine and front cover, illustrated dust jacket priced $2.50. Trivial offsetting from jacket design onto spine cloth, else a Fine, fresh copy in an about Fine jacket with a few tiny nicks at crown. Hanna 563. Flora and Bain, pp. 89, 94. Caldwell's first commercially published book (his third overall). The legendary Maxwell Perkins (Fitzgerald's editor at Scribner's) helped to edit this collection of new and previously published stories of rural life, in the deep South and in Maine, with a third section made up of a long, modernist, autobiographical prose poem called The Sacrilege of Allen Kent. The book was well-received critically (according to Flora and Bain, "Although all of Caldwell's story collections contain interesting pieces, nowhere does he surpass the achievement of American Earth."), and Perkins urged Caldwell to try writing a novel focusing on the rural South, which Caldwell knew best. Caldwell traveled to Wrens, Georgia, and found inspiration helping his father deliver food and medical supplies to the poor tenant farmers and sharecroppers there. The result was Tobacco Road. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed.