Tortilla Flat

STEINBECK, John.

Tortilla Flat.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. New York: Covici-Friede, 1935.

Octavo. 317 pp. Illustrated throughout by Ruth Gannett. Original oatmeal cloth lettered in blue, top edge stained blue; in the first-issue dust jacket. First-issue points present: the Van Rees Press credit at the foot of the copyright page, with no later-printing indication; and — the point most often missing — Steinbeck's biography on the rear jacket flap, which later printings replaced with blurbs. Front-flap price $2.50, unclipped. Goldstone & Payne A4b (the trade edition, one of 4,000 copies). Housed in a custom clamshell box with gilt lettering to a white leather spine. Fine in a very good-plus dust jacket; some fading to the spine, two short tape reinforcements to the verso, two small chips and a short closed tear at the lower front edge.

The book that made Steinbeck. Three earlier books had passed largely unnoticed; this one — a loose, comic chronicle of the paisanos of Monterey, framed as a sly retelling of Arthurian legend, with Danny and his friends as the knights — became his first real critical and commercial success. The trade edition ran 4,000 copies, and far fewer survive in their original first-issue jackets. A fine copy in a strong first-issue jacket — with Steinbeck's biography intact on the rear flap — housed in a custom clamshell box is the form in which collectors want this book.

SKU TO-2026-016