The Forgotten Village: Life in a Mexican Village (SIGNED)

STEINBECK, John.

The Forgotten Village: Life in a Mexican Village.

FIRST EDITION (SECOND PRINTING BEFORE PUBLICATION) — SIGNED BY STEINBECK. New York: The Viking Press, 1941.

Large octavo. 143 pp. Signed by John Steinbeck on the title page. Illustrated with 136 black-and-white photographs by Rosa Harvan Kline and Alexander Hackenschmied, from Herbert Kline's film of the same name. Original cream buckram stamped and decorated in green, top edges stained green; in the original color pictorial dust jacket with the $2.50 price intact and unclipped to the front flap. Goldstone & Payne A14a. "Second Printing Before Publication" stated on the copyright page — the state most copies bear, printed before the official publication date and bibliographically equivalent to the first for collecting purposes; the work was published on the same day in Canada by Macmillan. Very good in a very good unclipped dust jacket: light foxing to the covers and offsetting to the inner covers; the jacket complete, with wear and small chips to the spine ends and some darkening to the rear panel.

Steinbeck wrote The Forgotten Village as the screenplay for Herbert Kline's 1941 docufiction film — a project he pursued specifically to make a picture outside the Hollywood studio system, drawing on his deep engagement with Mexico. The film follows Juan Diego, a boy in a remote mountain village, as modern medicine arrives in conflict with traditional practice. Signed copies of The Forgotten Village are uncommon; the title-page signature here is clean and unobtrusive.

SKU TO-2026-019