Tortilla Flat. by STEINBECK, John - 1935: Illustrated by Ruth Gannett.

New York: Covici-Friede,, 1935. Inscribed by the author Octavo. Original beige cloth, spine lettered in blue, single horizontal rule continuing across boards, top edge blue. With the pictorial dust jacket, price-clipped. Housed in a custom blue quarter leatherette slipcase and matching chemise (slipcase worn). 8 full-page black-and-white illustrations by Gannett, 13 smaller illustrations in the text. Illustrated bookplate of Jean Hersholt to front pastedown, signed by him in ink below; his library label to inside of chemise, hand-numbered "S. 28"; bookseller label to rear endpaper, "Gelber Lilienthal Inc., San Francisco". Inscription along gutter of front free endpaper in ink reading "2760 1935 [? illegible]"; likely referring to a former library identification system, sometime bleached in an attempt to lighten the writing. Spine gently bruised, a couple faint marks to top edge of book block. A markedly bright, clean copy in the faintly toned jacket, spine browned, else the blue lettering and illustrations remaining fresh, two small, neat tape repairs to top edge verso, a few marks. First edition, first printing, cloth issue, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For Bob Bailey John Steinbeck". This copy is from the library of Jean Hersholt (1896-1956), a Danish-American Hollywood actor known for his role in Heidi and for his impressive collection of Anderseniana, which represented possibly the largest collection in America of Andersen's work. Another book inscribed to Bob Bailey by Steinbeck, The Pastures of Heaven (1932), was also part of Hersholt's collection, and was sold at his sale at Parke Bernet in 1954. Bailey remains an untraceable recipient; it is possible that, given Hersholt's film career and Steinbeck's close involvement with the work of various Hollywood studios, he is the American radio and movie actor Bob Bailey (1913-1983). It was Tortilla Flat, Steinbeck's fourth novel, that established his reputation: within a decade the story of Danny and his Mexican-American paisanos, set in Monterey, sold over a million copies and was translated into almost every European language. Of the first edition, 4,000 copies were issued in hard cover beige cloth and 500 in wrappers: "no evidence has been found that these copies in wrappers actually precede the hard cover issue" (Goldstone & Payne A4a). Goldstone & Payne A4b.