STEINBECK, John. Grapes of Wrath.

(London): World Books, 1940.  First edition thus.  Octavo.  553 pages.  Photoplay edition of Steinbeck’s American realist novel that won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.  The novel is set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other “Okies”, they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future.  This edition was issued to coincide with the British release of the classic John Ford directed film starring Henry Fonda.  A very good example in dust jacket that features a horseshoe-shaped collage of photographs of Fonda and the cast of the film.  Scarce.