Description:

JOHN STEINBECK REACTS TO ANTI-SEMITES
Privately-printed and distributed book: A LETTER BY JOHN STEINBECK TO THE FRIENDS OF DEMOCRACY (The Overbrook Press, Stamford, CT) 1940. Limited Edition of 350. 5 1/2" X 8 1/4". Stamford, Overbrook Press, 1940, first edition, dust jacket. Hardcover. One of 350 hardcover copies(issued after a one-sheet,4pp. "throw-away"), it includes an exchange of letters between Steinbeck and L. M. Birkhead about Steinbeck's ancestry and whether Steinbeck was Jewish and whether The Grapes of Wrath was Jewish propaganda. Steinbeck's response is superb: he sets forth his German and Irish heritage, but concludes: "...Those who wish...to believe me Jewish will go on believing it while men of good will and intelligence won't care one way or another. I can prove these things of course - but when I shall have to - the American democracy will have disappeared...P.S. On both sides and for many generations we are blond and blue eyed to a degree to arouse the admiration and perhaps envy of the dark complexioned Hitler...". A very rare printing almost never encountered, spine chipped at top and bottom, glassine present but separated and heavily chipped.

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May 9, 2012 11:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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