Arrowsmith
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1925.
First edition stated, limited issue. Copy #256 of 500 copies, signed by Sinclair Lewis on the limitation page at front. Association copy additionally signed by Lewis on the front free endpaper and inscribed to the actor who played the title role in the film adaptation: "To Ronald Colman, who to me is Martin Arrowsmith. Sinclair Lewis, Beverly Hills, April 12, 1939." The limited edition was published on the same date as the trade issue, and one copy was sent to every bookstore that ordered at least 25 copies of the trade issue. Crane 22.
[vi], 448 pp. Bound in publisher's blue paper-covered boards over white spine cloth, paper label to spine, top edge gilt. Near Fine with small staining to upper spine end, light offsetting from printer's glue to endpapers; overopened at multiple places. Housed in a custom slipcase, red cloth over quarter red morocco titled in gilt, lined with red flocked paper.
A double-signed copy of Lewis' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The novel's protagonist, a pioneering young doctor named Martin Arrowsmith, was based on the real-life microbiologist Paul De Kruif, who collaborated with Lewis on the novel and received 25% of the royalties — not a bad deal, since the novel was an instant bestseller. The movie adaptation starred the silver-voiced English actor Ronald Colman and was a critical and commercial success. Lewis loved it, and wrote a letter to the Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn thanking him for "a film which has completely carried out everything I tried to do in 'Arrowsmith.'" The inscription in this book, written several years later, suggests that Lewis' first impression hadn't changed. Colman returned the feeling: his own admiration for the novel had led him to pressure Goldwyn to make the picture.
A lovely association copy, mentioned in Juliet Benita Colman's biography of her father.
Price: $9,500